Conversation of Rev. Seraphim of Sarov with the Simbirsk landowner M. A. Motovilov about the purpose of Christian life took place in November 1831 in the forest near the Sarov desert. It talks about the essence of the Christian feat, which consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit as the highest and ultimate goal of the whole life of a believer.

St. Seraphim, addressing Nicholas Alexandrovich, teaches that prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and virtues are only means, and not the end itself: “The true goal of our Christian life is to receive the Holy Spirit of God.”

The heart of the conversation becomes an experienced testimony: the Monk Seraphim, without uttering a single word, prayerfully asks the Lord that Motovilov will see him in the light of Divine glory – and the Lord fulfills. This miracle was a confirmation that the grace of the Holy Spirit is available to everyone who seeks it with sincerity, humility, and love.

Rev. Seraphim draws parallels with the Bible: from Adam, who lost the breath of life, to Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, and to contemporaries who forgot about the Divine presence. He reveals the difference between true grace and spiritual beauty, between external affairs and inner transformation. His teachings are a call to live, personal communion with God, so that Christianity ceases to be a set of rules and becomes life in the Holy Spirit.

Nicholas Alexandrovich preserved and wrote down every word and style of speech of Rev. Seraphim of Sarov. The manuscript was found in the papers of N.A. Motovylov 70 years later by the famous Christian writer and publicist S.A. Nilus, who did a great job of recognizing the text and made it public.

NEXT

Conversation of St. Seraphim with M. A. Motovilov. On the purpose of the Christian life

The conversation of the Monk Seraphim with Nikolai Alexandrovich Motovilov (1809–1879) about the purpose of the Christian life took place in November 1831 in the forest, not far from the Sarov monastery, and was recorded by Motovilov. The manuscript was discovered 70 years later in the papers of Mykola Oleksandrovych’s wife, Elena Ivanovna Motovilova.

The seeming simplicity of the conversation is deceptive: the sermon is delivered by one of the greatest saints of the Russian Church, and the listener is a future ascetic of faith, healed by the prayer of Seraphim from an incurable disease. It was to N.A. Motovylov that the Monk Seraphim bequeathed before his death material worries about his Diviev orphans, about the foundation of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery by him.

It was at four o’clock. The day was gloomy. There was a quarter of snow on the ground, and a rather thick snowball was dusty on top, when Father Seraphim began a conversation with me on his nearest page, near the same “near wilderness” opposite the Sarovka River, near the mountain approaching close to its banks.

He placed me on the stump of a tree he had just cut down, and he squatted against me.

“The Lord revealed to me,” said the great elder, “that in your childhood you diligently wanted to know what the purpose of our Christian life was, and you repeatedly asked many great clergymen about this…

I must say here that since the age of 12 I have been incessantly troubled by this thought, and indeed, I have addressed many clergymen with this question, but the answers did not satisfy me. The elder did not know this.

“But no one,” Father Seraphim went on, “has told you about this definitively. They told you: go to church, pray to God, do God’s commandments, do good – this is the purpose of the Christian life for you. And some even resented you for being occupied with curiosity that was not pleasing to God, and told you: do not look for your superiors. But they didn’t speak as they should. Here I, poor Seraphim, will now explain to you what this purpose really is.

Prayer, fasting, vigil, and all other Christian activities, however good they may be in themselves, are not the purpose of our Christian life alone, although they serve as necessary means to achieve it. The true goal of our Christian life is to receive the Holy Spirit of God. But fasting, and vigil, and prayer, and almsgiving, and all things of Christ for the sake of the good work that is being done, are the means of acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. Note, father, that only for the sake of Christ does a good deed bring us the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, what has been done not for the sake of Christ, although it is good, does not represent to us a reward in the life of the coming century, and in this life it does not give us the grace of God either. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said: He who does not gather with Me wastes ( Matt.12:30 ). A good deed cannot be called otherwise than gathering, for although it is not done for the sake of Christ, it is nevertheless good. Scripture says: In every nation he who fears Him and he who does what is right is pleasing to Him ( Acts 10:35 ).

And, as we see from the sequence of the sacred narrative, this “factor of truth” is so pleasing to God, that an angel of the Lord appeared to Cornelius the centurion, who feared God and did the truth, while he was praying, and said, “Therefore go ye to Joppa, and call Simon, who is called Peter. He is a guest of a certain Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea; he shall speak unto thee words, by which you and all your household will be saved ( Acts 10:5–6 ). Therefore, the Lord uses all His Divine means to give such a person the opportunity not to lose his reward in the life of eternal life for his good deeds. But to do this, we must begin here with the right faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world to save sinners, and by acquiring for ourselves the grace of the Holy Spirit, who brings the Kingdom of God into our hearts and paves the way for us to acquire the bliss of the life to come. But this is the limit of this pleasing to God of good works, not for the sake of Christ: our Creator gives the means for their fulfillment. It remains up to a person whether to carry them out or not. That is why the Lord said to the Jews: If you were blind, you would have no sin on you; but as you say you see, then sin remains on you ( John 9: 41 ). If a man, like Cornelius, takes advantage of the pleasing to God of his work, not for the sake of Christ, and believes in His Son, then such a work will be thrown at him, as if it were done for Christ’s sake, and only because of faith in Him. And if not, then a person has no right to complain that his good has not gone into action. This never happens only when doing any good for Christ’s sake, for the good done for His sake is not only in the life of the age to come, but also in this life it fills a person with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and moreover, as it is said: … for God does not give the Spirit in measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things by His hand ( John 3:34–35 )

Yes, your God-love! Thus, the acquisition of this Spirit of God is the true goal of our Christian life, and prayer, vigil, fasting, almsgiving, and other virtues performed for the sake of Christ are only means to the acquisition of the Spirit of God.

– What about the acquisition? I asked Father Seraphim. – I don’t understand something.

“Acquisition is the same as acquisition,” he answered me. – Do you understand what it means to acquire money? So is the acquisition of the Spirit of God. After all, you, your God-love, understand what acquisition is in the secular sense? The purpose of the worldly life of ordinary people is to acquire, or gain, money, and for nobles, moreover, to receive honors, distinctions and other awards for state merits. The acquisition of the Spirit of God is also capital, but only grace-filled and eternal, and it, like monetary, official and temporary, is acquired in the same ways, very similar to each other. God the Word, our Lord the God-man Jesus Christ, likens our life to a marketplace and calls the work of our life on earth a purchase, and says to all of us: I will buy, act until I come … more precious at times, because the days are evil ( Luke 19:13 ; goods are not because of the reptile.

In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, when the fools lacked oil, it is said: Go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves ( Matt. 25:9 ). But when they bought it, the door to the marriage palace was already closed, and they could not enter it. Some say that the lack of oil in foolish virgins marks a lack of good deeds in their lifetime. This understanding is not entirely correct. What was their lack of good deeds, when they are still called virgins, even though they are fools? After all, virginity is the highest virtue, as a state of equal angelism, and could serve as a substitute for all other virtues in itself.

I, poor man, think that it was the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God that was lacking in them. Creating virtues, these virgins, out of spiritual stupidity, believed that this was only a spiritual matter, in order to do only virtues. They say, we have done virtue and have done the work of God, but they did not care whether they received the grace of the Spirit of God, whether they achieved it. Such ways of life, which are based on only one creation of virtues without a thorough test of whether they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, are spoken of in the parental books: “There is a way, try to be good in the beginning, but the end of it is to the bottom of hell.”

Anthony the Great, in his letters to the monks, speaks of such virgins: “Many monks and virgins have no idea of the differences in the wills acting in man, and do not know that three wills are at work in us: the first is God’s, all-perfect and all-saving; the second is one’s own, human, that is, if not pernicious, then not salutary; The third is demonic, completely detrimental. And it is this third enemy will that teaches a person either not to do any virtues, or to do them out of vanity, or for one good, and not for the sake of Christ. The second is our own will, which teaches us to do everything for the pleasure of our lusts, or even, as the enemy teaches, to do good for good’s sake, ignoring the grace they buy. The first, God’s will and all-saving will, consists only in doing good only for the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, as an eternal, inexhaustible treasure that cannot be fully and worthily appreciated. It is this acquisition of the Holy Spirit that is actually called the oil that the foolish virgins lacked. That is why they are called fools, who have forgotten about the necessary fruit of virtue, about the grace of the Holy Spirit, without which there is no salvation for anyone and there can be, because: “By the Holy Spirit every soul is nourished and exalted in purity, and is illuminated by the Trinity unity of the sacrament.”

The Holy Spirit Himself dwells in our souls, and it is precisely the dwelling in our souls of Him, the Almighty, and the compassion with our spirit of His Trinitarian Unity that is granted to us only through the all-round acquisition of the Holy Spirit on our part, which prepares in our soul and flesh the throne of God and the All-Creator with the Spirit with the Spirit with our spirit. To God: I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people ( 2 Corinthians 6:16 ). This is the fir tree in the lamps of the wise virgins, who could burn the light and burn for a long time, and those virgins with these burning lamps could wait for the Bridegroom who came at midnight, and enter with Him into the palace of joy. And the fools, when they saw that their lamps were going out, went to the market and bought oils, but did not have time to return in time, because the door was already closed. The market is our life; the doors of the marriage palace, closed and not allowed to enter the Bridegroom, are human death; wise and foolish virgins – Christian souls; spruces are not works, but the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God, received through them into our being, which transforms it from this into this, that is, from decay into incorruptibility, from spiritual death into spiritual life, from darkness into light, from the nativity scene of our being, where passions are attached, like cattle and beasts, to Christ Jesus, our Lord, Creator and Deliverer, and Eternal Bridegroom of our souls.

How great is God’s compassion for our calamity, that is, not paying attention to His care for us, when God says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” ( Rev. 3:20 ), understanding under the door during our lifetime, not yet closed by death! Oh, how I would like you, your God-love, to always be in the Spirit of God in this life! For the Lord will judge in whatever He finds. Woe, great woe, when he finds us burdened with cares and the sorrows of this world, for who can endure his wrath, and who can stand against his face? That is why it is said: “Watch and pray lest you fall into temptation” ( Matt. 26:41 ; Mk. 14:38 ), that is, let him not be deprived of the Spirit of God, for vigilance and prayer bring us His grace. Of course, every virtue created for Christ’s sake gives the grace of the Holy Spirit, but prayer gives the most, because it is always in our hands, as an instrument for acquiring the grace of the Spirit.

Would you like, for example, to go to church, but either there is no church, or the service has left; they would like to give to the beggar, but there is no beggar, or nothing to give; they would like to keep their virginity, but they do not have the strength to do it by your addition or by the efforts of hostile intrigues, which you cannot resist because of human weakness; they would like to do some other virtue for the sake of Christ, but they also have no strength or an opportunity cannot be found. And this has nothing to do with prayer: everyone always has the opportunity to do it – the rich and the poor, the noble and the simple, the strong and the weak, the healthy and the sick, the righteous and the sinner.

How great is the power of prayer even for a sinful person, when he is lifted up from the bottom of his heart, judge by the following example of the Holy Tradition: when, at the request of a desperate mother who lost her only begotten son, kidnapped by death, the harlot wife who happened to her on her way and even from the former sin has not yet been cleansed. She cried out to the Lord: “Not for my sake of the wretched sinner, but for the sake of tears for the sake of the mother, who longs for her son and firmly believes in Your mercy and omnipotence, O Christ God, has risen, O Lord, her son…” – and the Lord resurrected him.

Yes, your God-love is great, the power of prayer is great, and it brings the Spirit of God the most, and it is most convenient for everyone to correct it. Blessed shall we be when the Lord God turns us watchful, in the fullness of the gifts of His Holy Spirit. Then we can sincerely hope to be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, Whom He will come with glory and power to judge much of the living and the dead and to give to someone according to his work.

Behold, Your Love, it is a great happiness to consider it a great happiness to converse with poor Seraphim, being sure that he is not deprived of the grace of the Lord. So what do we say about the Lord Himself, the Source who does not worship all kinds of goodness, both heavenly and earthly? After all, through prayer we will be honored to talk with Him, the All-Good and Life-Giving God and our Savior. But even here we should pray only until God the Holy Spirit descends on us in the events of His heavenly grace known to Him. And when He deigns to visit us, we must stop praying. Why then pray to Him: “Come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all defilement, and save, O Blessed One, our souls,” when He has already come to us to save us, who hope in Him and call on His holy Name in truth, that is. in order to humbly and lovingly meet Him, the Comforter, inside the temples of our souls, greedy and thirsty for His coming. I will explain this to your love for God by an example: behold, even if you invited me to visit you, I would also come to you at your call and would like to talk with you. And you would still invite me: welcome, please, they say, to me! So I would like to say: what is it? Is he crazy or out of his mind? I came to him, and he still called me! – This is how he treats the Lord God the Holy Spirit. That is why it is said: “Cancel and understand that I am God, I will be exalted in tongues, I will be lifted up on earth” , that is. I will appear and appear to everyone who believes in me and calleth me, and will speak with him, as I once spoke with Adam in Paradise, with Abraham and Jacob, and with the rest of my servants, with Moses, Job, and the like.

Many interpret that this abolition applies only to worldly matters, i.e. that in prayerful conversation with God, it is necessary to abolish worldly affairs. But I will tell you by God that although it is necessary to abolish them in prayer, but when, with the almighty power of faith and prayer, the Lord God the Holy Spirit makes us visited and comes to us in the fullness of His ineffable goodness, then it is necessary to abolish prayer as well. The soul speaks and is in a rumor when it makes prayer; and when the Holy Spirit is found, one should be in complete silence, hearing clearly and intelligibly all the verbs of eternal life, which He will then proclaim. At the same time, one must be in complete sobriety of soul, spirit, and purity of flesh. This was the case at Mount Horeb, when the Israelites were told not to touch women until the appearance of God at Sinai in three days, for our God is “fire, eat all unclean things,” and no one can enter into communion with Him from the defilement of flesh and spirit.

– And how, father, to be with other virtues created for the sake of Christ, in order to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit? After all, you only want to talk to me about prayer?

– Obtain the grace of the Holy Spirit and all others of Christ for the sake of virtues, trade them spiritually, trade those of them that give you greater profit. Collect the capital of the grace-filled surpluses of God’s grace, put them in God’s eternal pawnshop from the immaterial interest, and not four or six per hundred, but one hundred per one spiritual ruble, but even that countless times more. Approximately: prayer and vigilance give you more grace of God, watch and pray; fasting giveth much of the Spirit of God, fast; give more alms, do alms, and thus consider every virtue that Christ does, for the sake of it.

Here I will tell you about myself, poor Seraphim. I come from Kursk merchants. So, when I was not yet in the monastery, we used to sell goods that the profit gives us more. So do you, father, and, just as in the business of commerce, it is not in the power to trade more, but in obtaining more profit, so in the business of the Christian life: it is not in the power to only pray or to do some other good deed. Although the apostle says: “Pray without ceasing” ( 1 Thess. 5:17 ), but in the way you remember, and adds: “… but in the church I would rather speak five words with my mind, so that I may instruct others, than the darkness of words in a strange tongue” ( 1 Corinthians 14:19 ). And the Lord says: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but does the will of My Father who is in heaven” ( Matt. 7:21 ), that is, he does the work of God and moreover with reverence, because “cursed is he who does the work of the Lord carelessly” ( 10 ). And the work of God is: “Let you believe in God and Jesus Christ sent by him” ( John 17:3 ). If we judge correctly about the commandments of Christ and the Apostles, then our Christian work does not consist in increasing the number of good works that serve the end of our Christian life only by means, but in obtaining greater benefit from them, that is, for the greater acquisition of the enormous gifts of the Holy Spirit.

So I would like you, your God-loving, to gain this fundamental source of God’s grace and always consider: are you in the Spirit of God or not? And if in the Spirit, then blessed be God! – there is nothing to talk about: at least now for the Last Judgment of Christ. For in what he finds himself, he will judge. If not, then it is necessary to analyze why and why the Lord God the Holy Spirit deigned to leave us, and again to seek and seek Him and not to lag behind until the sought Lord God the Holy Spirit is found and is again with us by His grace. Those who drive us away from Him our enemies must be attacked in this way, until their dust is dissipated: … and I destroy them and strike them down, and they do not rise and fall under my feet ( 2 Samuel 22:39 ).

Yes, father. So be kind enough to trade spiritually in virtue. Distribute the gifts of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which require, following the example of a candle generated, which itself shines, burning with earthly fire, and other candles, without diminishing its fire, kindles in the light of all in other places. And if this is so with regard to earthly fire, what shall we say of the fire of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God? For, for example, earthly wealth, when it is distributed, becomes impoverished, but the heavenly riches of God’s grace, the more it is heard, the more it is multiplied by the one who distributes it. So the Lord Himself deigned to say to the Samaritan woman: Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will not thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water flowing into eternal life ( John 4:13–14 ).

“Father,” I said, “here you all want to talk about the acquisition of the grace of the Holy Spirit as the goal of the Christian life; But how and where can I see it? Good deeds are visible, but how can the Holy Spirit be seen? How will I know if He is with me or not?

“Now,” the elder answered, “because of our almost universal coldness to the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and because of our inattention to the actions of His Divine Providence for us and the communion of man with God, we have come to the point that, one might say, we have almost completely distanced ourselves from the truly Christian life. The words of the Holy Scriptures seem strange to us now, when the Spirit of God through the mouth of Moses speaks of what Adam saw the Lord walking into paradise, or when we read from the Apostle Paul: But when this was done, Paul laid down in spirit, passing through Macedonia and Achaia, going to Jerusalem. Acts 19:21). More than once in other places of the Holy Scriptures it is said about the appearance of God to people.

In this way, it is said of both Abraham and Jacob that they saw the Lord and talked with Him, and Jacob even wrestled with Him. Moses saw God and all the people with him when he was pleased to receive from God the tablets of the law on Mount Sinai. The pillar of cloud and fire, or, what is the same, the manifest grace of the Holy Spirit, served as guides for the people of God in the wilderness. People did not see God and the grace of His Holy Spirit in dreams, nor in dreams, nor in the frenzy of the imagination of the sorrowful, but truly of vision. We have become very inattentive to the work of our salvation, so it turns out that we and many other words of Scripture do not take it as we should. And all because we do not seek the grace of God, we do not allow it to dwell in our souls because of the pride of our minds, and therefore we do not have true education from the Lord, which is sent into the hearts of people who are greedy and thirsty for the truth of God with all their hearts.

Many interpret that when the Bible says: “And the Lord God created man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his person the breath of life, and the man became a living soul ( Gen. 2:7 ), – as if this meant that in Adam before that there was no soul and spirit of man, but there was as if there was only one body, but only one body. This interpretation is wrong, because the Lord God created Adam from the finger of the earth in the same composition as the holy Apostle Paul affirms: May the God of peace Himself sanctify you in all its fullness, and may your spirit, soul, and body in its entirety be preserved without blemish at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ( 1 Thessalonians 5:23 ). And all these three parts of our being were created from the earth’s finger, and Adam was not created dead, but an active animal being, like other living creatures on earth, spiritualized creatures of God. But this is the power, that if the Lord God had not then breathed into his person this breath of life, that is, the grace of the Lord God the Holy Spirit, from the Father, which proceeds both in the Son who rests, and for the sake of the Son sent into the world, then Adam, however wonderfully he was created over the other creatures of God, if not the Holy Spirit within himself, which elevates him to the dignity of God, and would be like all other creatures, although they have body, soul, and spirit, and belong to each according to their kind, but does not have the Holy Spirit within himself. And when the Lord God breathed in the person of Adam the breath of life, then, according to the words of Moses, the Lord God created man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his person the breath of life, and the man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7), that is, in all things like God and like Him, forever and ever. Adam was created before any of the elements created by God, which was not subject to the action of any of the elements created by God, that neither water nor fire burned him, nor could the earth devour in its abysses, nor could the air be harmed by any of its actions. All things were subject to him as the beloved of God, as the king and lord of the creature. And everything admired him as the perfect crown of God’s creatures. From this breath of life, breathed in the person of Adam from the All-Creative Lips of the All-Creator and Almighty God, Adam managed to do so that there has never been a man from eternity, no, and it is unlikely that there will ever be a wiser and more noble man on earth than he. When the Lord commanded him to give the names of any creature, he gave each creature such names in the language that signify all the qualities, all the strength and all the properties of the creature, which it has according to the gift of God given to it at its creation.

It was by this gift of God’s supernatural grace, sent to him from the breath of life, that Adam could see and understand the Lord who goes to paradise, and comprehend His verbs, and the conversation of the holy angels, and the speech of all the beasts, and birds, and creeping things that dwell on the earth, and all that is now of us, as of us, as of us, As from us, as from us, as from us, the fall was so clear. The Lord God gave the same wisdom and strength, and omnipotence and all other good and holy qualities to Eve, creating her not from the finger of the earth, but from Adam’s rib in the Eden of sweetness, in the paradise planted by Him in the midst of the earth.

In order to conveniently and always maintain in Himself the immortal, God-filled and all-perfect properties of this breath of life, God planted in the middle of Paradise the tree of life, in the fruits of which He enclosed the whole essence and fullness of the gifts of this Divine breath of His. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, then themselves, and all their descendants, could always, enjoying the taste of the fruit of the tree of life, maintain in themselves the eternally life-giving power of God’s grace and the immortal, eternally youthful fullness of the forces of flesh, soul and spirit, and the unceasing agelessness of our now incomprehensible infinity.

When, by savoring from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, – prematurely and abominably the commandments of God – they learned the difference between good and evil and suffered all the evils that followed the transgression of the commandment of God, they lost this priceless gift of the grace of the Spirit of God, so that until the very coming into the world of the God-Man Jesus was not glorified ( John 7: 39 ).

However, this does not mean that the Spirit of God was not present in the world at all, but His dwelling was not as complete as in Adam or in us, Orthodox Christians, but appeared only from outside, and the signs of His presence in the world were known to the human race. So, for example, after the fall, many secrets were revealed to Adam after the fall, as well as to Eve with him, concerning the future salvation of the human race. And Cain, in spite of his wickedness and his crime, understood the voice of the grace-filled Divine, albeit revealing, conversation with him. Noah was talking to God. Abraham saw God and His day and rejoiced. The grace of the Holy Spirit, working from without, was reflected in all the Old Testament prophets and saints of Israel. The Jews then established special prophetic schools, where they were taught to recognize the signs of the appearance of God or Angels and to distinguish the actions of the Holy Spirit from the usual phenomena that occur in the nature of ungrace-filled earthly life. Simeon the Receiver of God, the God-fathers Joachim and Anna, and many countless servants of God had constant, diverse Divine phenomena, voices, revelations, justified by obvious miraculous events. Not with the same power as in the people of God, but the manifestation of the Spirit of God also worked in the Gentiles who did not know the true God, because God also found people chosen for Himself from among them. Such, for example, were the virgin prophetesses, the Sibyls, who condemned themselves to virginity, although for God Unknown, but still for God, the Creator of the universe and the Almighty and Ruler of the World, by whom the pagans were aware of Him. Likewise, the pagan philosophers, who, although they wandered in the darkness of ignorance of the Divine, but, seeking the truth, the beloved of God, could be partakers of the Spirit of God in this very God-loving search, for it is said: “For if the pagans, who do not have the law, by nature do what is lawful, then , 2 ). And the Lord so pleases the truth that He Himself declares it by the Holy Spirit: The truth will arise from the earth, and the truth will fall from heaven ( Ps. 84:12 ).

So, your love for God, both in the Jewish people sacred, the people beloved by God, and in the pagans who do not know God, and yet the knowledge of God was preserved, that is, father, a clear and reasonable understanding of how the Lord God the Holy Spirit works in man and how exactly and in action, the Lord God is the Holy Spirit, and not the beauty of the enemy. Thus, all these things were from the fall of Adam to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh into the world.

Without this, your love for God, which has always been preserved in the human race tangibly about the actions of the Holy Spirit, would not have been possible for people to know for sure whether the fruit of the wife’s seed promised to Adam and Eve has come into the world, which is to wipe out the head of the serpent.

But here is Simeon the God-Receiver, preserved by the Holy Spirit after foretelling to him in the 65th year of his life the mystery of His conception and birth of the sleeping pill from the Most Pure Ever-Virgin Mary, having lived by the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God for 300 years, then, in the 365th year of his life, he spoke clearly in the temple, and He Himself, the Christ, the Savior of the world, about whose natural conception and birth from the Holy Spirit was foretold to him by an Angel.

So St. Anna the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, who served the Lord God in the temple of God for eighty years from her widowhood and was known by the special gifts of God’s grace as a righteous, pure widow of God, announced that he was indeed the Messiah promised to the world, the true Adam, the true Christ, and the human race.

But when He, our Lord Jesus Christ, deigned to do the whole work of salvation, then after His Resurrection He blew on the apostles, restoring the breath of life lost by Adam, and gave them the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. But this is not enough, for He said to them: It is better for you that I go (to the Father – Ed.); for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you ( John 16:7 ). But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth ( John 16:13 ). But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He bears witness of Me ( John 15:26 ). This was already the grace promised to them (grace for grace) ( John 1:16 ).

And so, on the day of Pentecost, He solemnly sent them the Holy Spirit in the breath of storms, in the form of tongues of fire, in which one of them were gray-haired and entered into them, and filled them with the power of the fiery-like Divine grace, which breathes dew-like and joyfully works in souls. And this very fire-inspired grace of the Holy Spirit, when it is given to us, all the faithful of Christ, in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, is sacredly sorrowed by the anointing of the world in the most important places indicated by the Holy Church of our body, as the eternal guardian of this grace. It is said: “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

And on what, Father, your God-love, do we, the poor, put our seals, if not on vessels that preserve some precious jewel of our high value? What can be the highest in the world, and what is more precious than the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are sent to us from above in the Sacrament of Baptism, because this Baptismal grace is so great and so necessary, so lively for man, that even from a heretic person it will not be separated until his death, that is, to a term designated from a term designated from a term designated from a term, marked from the time of life, marked from the time of life. that he will be fit and that he will be able to accomplish in this time given to him by the power of grace given to him in excess of the power of grace granted to him. And if we had never sinned after our baptism, we would have been holy, blameless, and removed from all defilement of flesh and spirit, saints of God. But herein lies the trouble that we, flourishing in old age, do not prosper in grace and in the mind of God, as our Lord Christ Jesus prospered in this, but on the contrary, by corrupting little by little, we lose the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God and become sinful people in various ways. But if anyone, being stirred up by the wisdom of God, which seeks our salvation, which bypasses all things, decides for its sake to matins with God and watch for the sake of obtaining his eternal salvation, then he, obedient to its voice, must resort to what is true in all the sins of his sins and good deeds against the goodness of Christ – to the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, who works within us and the Kingdom of God arranges within us. It is not for nothing that the Word of God says: “The kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who make efforts seize it” ( Matt.11: 12 ). That is, those people who, in spite of the sinful bonds that bound them and do not allow by their violence and incitation to new sins to come to Him, our Savior, with perfect repentance to be tortured with Him, despising the whole fortress of these sinful ties, try to break His bonds before people who are such by grace. “Come,” says the Lord. “If your sins are like crimson, I will whiten like snow” ( Isaiah 1:18 ).

So once upon a time, the holy mysterious seer John the Theologian saw such people in white clothes, that is, clothes of justification, and “dates in their hands” as a sign of victory, and they sang to God the strange song “Hallelujah”. No one could imitate the beauty of their singing. Of them the Angel of God said: “These are they who came from the great tribulation; they washed their robes and made their clothes white with the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14), asking them with suffering and making them white in communion of the Most Pure and Life-giving Mysteries of the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb Immaculate and Most Pure Christ, first of all the age of those who were slain by His own will for salvation and salvation for their own will for the salvation of the broken, but never patient, who gives us in our eternal and inexhaustible salvation the parting words of eternal life, in return favorable at His Last Judgment and the most precious replacement, and every mind surpasses that fruit of the tree of life which our human race wanted to deprive.

Although the enemy-devil seduced Eve, and Adam fell with her, the Lord not only gave them the Redeemer in the fruit of the seed of the Wife, who corrected death by death, but also gave all of us in the Woman, the Ever-Virgin Mary, who erased in Herself and erases the head of the whole human race. To Herself and to our God, a shameful and irresistible Representative even for the most desperate sinners. That is why the Mother of God Herself is called the “Expression of Demons”, because there is no way for demons to destroy a person, if only the person himself does not retreat from resorting to the help of the Mother of God.

Again, your love for God, I, poor Seraphim, must explain what is the difference between the actions of the Holy Spirit, the sacrament who inspires in the hearts of believers in our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, and the actions of sinful darkness, according to the teaching and kindling of the devilish thief in us. The Spirit of God reminds us of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and acts together with Him, always solemnly, joyfully our hearts and guiding our feet to the path of peace, but the flattering, demonic, detestable spirit of Christ is wise, and his actions in us are rebellious, scrupulous and full of carnal lust, lust. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die (John 11:26) – he who has the grace of the Holy Spirit for the right faith in Christ, if because of human infirmity he died spiritually from some sin, but does not die forever, will be resurrected by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ grace-grace. About this grace, manifested to the whole world and our human race in the God-man, it is said in the Gospel: “In Him was life, and life was the light of men”, and it is added: “And light shines in darkness, and darkness did not envelop Him” (John 1:4-5). This means that the grace of the Holy Spirit, granted at baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in spite of the human falls, in spite of the darkness around our souls, nevertheless shines in the heart, from time immemorial with the former Divine light of Christ’s priceless merits. This light of Christ, in the unrepentance of the sinner, says to the Father: Abba Father! Do not be completely angry at this unrepentance! And then, when the sinner is converted to the path of repentance, he completely smoothes out the traces of the crimes committed, dressing the former criminal again with the garment of incorruptibility, woven from the grace of the Holy Spirit, about the acquisition of which, as the goal of the Christian life, I have been talking for so long to your love of God.

I will also tell you that you may understand even more clearly what is meant by God’s grace and how to discern it, and in what its action is especially manifested in people educated by it. The grace of the Holy Spirit is the light that enlightens man. All of Scripture speaks of this. Thus, the God-Father David said: “Your word is a lamp to my foot and a light to my path, and: If it were not for your law to be my comfort, I would have perished in my affliction” ( Psalm 118: 105, 92 ). That is, the grace of the Holy Spirit, expressed in the Law by the words of the commandments of the Lord, is my lamp and light, and if it were not for this grace of the Holy Spirit, which I so diligently and diligently acquire that I daily learn about the fate of Your righteousness, I would have enlightened me in the darkness of the trouble associated with a great spark of light, in order to illuminate my path on the path of life, dark from the ill-will of my enemies.

And in fact, the Lord has repeatedly manifested for many witnesses the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit on those people whom He sanctified and enlightened with His great inspirations. Think of Moses after his conversation with God on Mount Sinai. People could not look at him – he shone so with an unusual light that surrounded his face. He was even forced to the people only under a blanket. Remember the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor. A great light came upon him, and his appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow ( Matt.28:3 ). When Moses and Elijah appeared to him in the same light, then, in order to hide the radiance of the light of Divine grace, which blinded the eyes of the disciples, a cloud of light, it is said, illuminated them ( Matt. 17:5 ). And thus the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God is in an indescribable light for all to whom God manifests its action.

“How,” I asked Father Seraphim, “can I know that I am in the grace of the Holy Spirit?”

“This, your love for God, is very simple,” he answered me, “that is why the Lord says: “The whole simple essence of the mind that finds…” But all our trouble is that we ourselves do not seek this Divine mind, which does not boast (does not puff up), because it is not of this world. About this mind, the apostle said that God wants all people to be saved and attain to the knowledge of the truth ( 1 Tim. 2:4 ). And the Lord said to His Apostles about the lack of this understanding: And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then can you understand all the parables?” ( Mark 4: 13 ). Again, the Gospel says of the apostles that “the Lord revealed to them the understanding of the Scriptures.” Being in this mind, the apostles always saw whether the Spirit of God dwelt in them or not, and, imbued with it, and seeing the presence of the Spirit of God with them, they affirmatively said that their work was holy and fully pleasing to the Lord God. This explains why they wrote in their epistles: “It is fitting for the Holy Spirit and for us” ( Acts 15:28 ), and only on these grounds did they offer their epistles as an unchanging truth, for the benefit of all the faithful – this is how the holy apostles were tangibly aware of the presence of the Spirit of God in themselves… So, yours?

I replied:

“Still, I don’t understand why I can be firmly convinced that I am in the Spirit of God. How can I recognize His true appearance?

Father Seraphim answered:

“I have already told you, Your Love, in detail how people are in the Spirit of God and how He should understand His appearance in us… What do you need, father?

“It is necessary,” I said, “that I should understand this well.

Then Father Seraphim took me tightly by the shoulders and said to me:

“We are both with you now, father, in the Spirit of God. Why don’t you look at me?

I replied:

“I can’t look, father, because lightning is pouring out of your eyes. Your face is brighter than the sun, and my eyes ache with pain.

Father Seraphim said:

“Do not be afraid, Your God-love! And now you yourself are as bright as I am. You yourselves are now in the fullness of God’s Spirit, otherwise you would not have been able to see me like this.

And leaning his head towards me, he said quietly in my ear:

– Thank the Lord God for His indescribable mercy to you. You saw that I did not even cross myself, but only in my heart mentally to the Lord God and inside myself: “Lord, grant him to see clearly and with bodily eyes the descent of Your Spirit, which You will honor Your servants with when You bless them to be in the light of Your beautiful glory!” How can we not thank Him for this indescribable gift to both of us? Yes, father, the Lord does not always show His mercy to the great hermits. This grace of God deigned to console your broken heart, as a child-loving mother, according to the figure of the Mother of God Herself… Well, father, don’t look me in the eye? Look simply, do not be afraid – the Lord is with us!

I looked into his face after these words, and an even greater reverent horror assailed me. Imagine, in the middle of the sun, in the most brilliant brightness of its midday rays, the face of a person talking to you. You see the movement of his lips, the changing expression of his eyes, you hear his voice, you feel that someone is holding you by the shoulders with his hands, but not only do you not see these hands, you do not see yourself or his figure, but only one dazzling light, stretching far away, for a few fathoms around, and will shine with its bright brilliance, and will shine with its bright brilliance; And he will shine with his bright splendour, and he will shine with his bright splendour, and he will shine with his bright splendour, and he will shine with his bright splendour, and he will shine with his bright splendour, and he will shine with his bright splendour, and he will shine with his bright splendour, showering down from above both me and the great elder. Is it possible to imagine the situation I was in then?

“What do you feel now?” Father Seraphim asked me.

“Extremely good!” I said.

“But how good?” What exactly?

I replied:

“I feel such silence and peace in my soul that I cannot express in any words!

“This, your love for God,” said Father Seraphim, “is the world about which the Lord said to His disciples: “My peace I give to you; For it is not for the world gives, but I give to you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but since you are not of the world, yet I have chosen you out of the world, because the world hates you” ( John 15:19 ; John 14:27 ). These are the people who are hated by this world, but chosen by the Lord, and the Lord gives the world that you now feel within yourselves; “Peace”, according to the word of the Apostles, “all reason is preferred”. This is what the Apostle calls him, because it is impossible to express in a single word the spiritual well-being that he does in those people into whose hearts the Lord God introduces him. Christ the Savior calls it the world from His own bounty, and not from this world, because no temporary earthly well-being can give it to the human heart: it is given from above from the Lord God Himself, therefore it is called the world of God…

“What do you feel?” Father Seraphim asked me.

– Unusual pleasure! I said.

And he continued:

– This is the pleasure spoken of in the Holy Scriptures: “From the beat of Thy house, and from the stream of Thy sweetnesses Thou shalt drink them” ( Ps. 35:9 ). This pleasure now overflows our hearts and spills through all our veins with our indescribable pleasure. From this sweetness our hearts seem to melt, and we are both full of such bliss that no language can express… What else do you feel?

– Unusual joy in my whole heart!

And Father Seraphim continued:

– When the Spirit of God descends on a person and illuminates him with the fullness of His inspiration, then the human soul is filled with indescribable joy, for the Spirit of God rejoices in everything He touches. This is the same joy of which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: “A woman, when she gives birth, endures sorrow, because her time has come; but when he gives birth to a child, he no longer remembers the sorrow of joy, because man was born into the world. So you also now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you ( Jn.16:21–22, 33 ). But no matter how comforting this joy that you now feel in your heart, it is still insignificant in comparison with the one about which the Lord Himself said through the mouth of His Apostle, “that the eyes did not see, the ear did not hear, and it did not come into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love Him” ( 9 ). The predispositions of this joy are given to us now, and if they make our souls so sweet, good and cheerful, then what can we say about the joy that is prepared there in heaven, weeping here on earth? So, father, you have wept enough in your life on earth, and see with what joy the Lord comforts you in this life. Now, Father, it is up to us, Father, so that, applying labor to work, we may approach from strength to strength and reach the measure of the age of the fulfillment of Christ, may the words of the Lord be fulfilled in us: “Those who endure the Lord, they will change the fortress, they will flutter like eagles, they will flow and will not toil, they will go and they will not be influenced and influenced by the God of the gods in Zion understanding and heavenly visions…” . Then our present joy, which is small and brief to us, will appear in all its fullness, and no one will take it from us, full of indescribable heavenly pleasures… What else do you feel, your love for God?

I replied:

– Unusual warmth!

“How, father, is the warmth?” But we are sitting in the forest. Now it is winter in the yard, and there is snow under our feet, and there is a cream of snow on us, and cereals are falling from above… What kind of warmth can there be?

I replied:

“And the one that happens in the bathhouse, when they put it on the heater and when steam falls from it like a pillar…”

“And the smell,” he asked me, “is it the same as from the bathhouse?”

“No,” I answered, “there is nothing like this fragrance on earth…” When, during my mother’s lifetime, I loved to dance and go to balls and dance evenings, my mother would sprinkle me with perfume that she bought in the best shops in Kazan, but even those perfumes do not give off such a fragrance…

And Father Seraphim, smiling pleasantly, said:

“And I myself, father, know this as well as you, and I deliberately ask you if this is how you feel?” Truly, your God-love! No pleasantness of earthly incense can be compared with the incense we now feel, because we are now surrounded by the fragrance of the Holy Spirit of God. What earthly can be like it.. Note, Your God-love, because you told me that it is warm around us, like in a bath, but look: after all, neither on you nor on me the snow melts under us either. Therefore, this warmth is not in the air, but in ourselves. So there is exactly the same warmth for which the Holy Spirit with the words of prayer makes us cry out to the Lord: “With the warmth of the Holy Spirit, warm me.” The hermits and hermits warmed by it were not afraid of the winter frost, dressing, as if in warm fur coats, in grace-filled clothes woven from the Holy Spirit. This is how it should really be, because the grace of God must dwell within us, in our hearts, because the Lord said: “The kingdom of God is within you” ( Luke 17: 21 ). By the Kingdom of God, the Lord understood the grace of the Holy Spirit. Behold, this Kingdom of God is now within us, and the grace of the Holy Spirit outwardly illuminates and warms us, and, filling the surrounding air with repeated fragrances, delights our senses with heavenly delight, watering our hearts with joy indescribable. Our present situation is the same of which the Apostle said: “The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” ( Rom. 14:17 ). Our faith does not consist in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the manifestation of the spirit and power ( 1 Corinthians 2:4 ). It was in this state that the Lord said: Verily I say unto you, there are some of those who stand here, who will not taste death, until they have already seen the kingdom of God come in power ( Mk.9: 1 ). Behold, father, your love of God, with what inexpressible joy the Lord God has now granted us! This is what it means to be in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, about which St. Macarius of Egypt writes: “I myself was in the fullness of the Holy Spirit…” With this fullness of His Holy Spirit, the Lord has now filled us, the poor… Well, now there seems to be nothing to ask, Your God-love, how! Do you remember the present phenomenon of the indescribable mercy of God that has visited us?

“I don’t know, father,” I said, “whether the Lord will forever honor me to remember this mercy of God as vividly and clearly as I feel now.

“And I tell you,” Father Seraphim answered me, “that the Lord will help you to keep this forever in your memory, because otherwise His grace would not have inclined so instantly to my humble plea and would not have warned you to listen to poor Seraphim so quickly, especially since it is not for you alone to give you reason. having established themselves in the work of God, they could also be useful to others. As for the fact that, father, that I am a monk and you are a worldly person, there is nothing to think about: God has a right faith in Him and His only begotten Son. For this, the grace of the Holy Spirit is abundantly given. The Lord seeks a heart filled with love for God and neighbor – this is the throne on which He loves to sit and on which He is in the fullness of His heavenly glory. “Son, give me your heart! He says. “And all the rest I will add to you” , because the kingdom of God can be contained in the human heart. The Lord commands His disciples: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and … will be added to you. […] For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things” ( Matt. 6:32–33 ; Luke 12:30–31 ). The Lord God does not reproach us for the use of earthly goods, for He Himself says that according to our position in earthly life, we demand all these, that is, everything that calms our human life on earth and makes our way to the heavenly homeland more convenient and easier. Based on this, St. The apostle Paul said that, in his opinion, there is nothing better in the world than godliness combined with abundance. And the Holy Church prays that this may be granted to us by the Lord God; and although sorrows, misfortunes, and various needs are inseparable from our life on earth, yet the Lord God did not want and does not want us to be only in sorrows and misfortunes, which is why He commands us through the Apostles to bear each other’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ personally gives us a commandment that we love each other and, rejoicing in this mutual love, facilitate for ourselves the sad and narrow path of our march to the heavenly Fatherland. Why did He come down from heaven to us, if not in order to take upon Himself our poverty and enrich us with the riches of His goodness and His indescribable bounty? For He did not come to be served, but that He Himself might minister to others, and that He might give His life for the salvation of many. In the same way, you, your love for God, create and, seeing the mercy of God clearly granted to you, inform everyone who desires salvation about it. “The harvest is plentiful,” says the Lord, “the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2). Behold, the Lord God brought us forth to work and gave us the gifts of His grace, so that, reaping the ears of salvation of our neighbors through the multitude of whom we have brought into the Kingdom of God, we may bear Him fruit – thirty, sixty, and a hundred. Let us stick to ourselves, father, so that we may not be condemned with that wicked and lazy slave who buried his talent in the ground, but let us try to imitate those good and faithful servants of the Lord who brought to their Lord: one instead of two, four, and the other instead of five, ten. There is nothing to doubt about the mercy of the Lord God. Yep, your love for God, see how the words of the Lord, spoken through the prophet, came true for us: Am I God only near, saith the Lord, and not God in the distance? ( Jer. 23:23 ). No sooner had I, poor one, crossed myself, but only wished in my heart that the Lord would grant you to see goodness in all its fullness, when He immediately and in deed, by fulfilling my wish to hasten, released you. Without worrying I say this, and not to show you my meaning and pto envy you, and not so that you think that I am a monk and you are a layman, no, your God-love, no! “The Lord is near to all who call on Him in truth, and He has no regard for persons, for the Father loves the Son and gives all things in His hand.” If only we ourselves would love Him, our Heavenly Father, in a filial way. The Lord listens to both the monk and the layman, the simple Christian, so that both are Orthodox and both love God from the depths of their souls, and both have faith in Him, no matter how “the seed is combustible”, and both will move the mountains. “One moves thousands, and two move darkness.” The Lord Himself says: “All things are possible for the believer” ( Mk. 9: 23 ), and the priest St. Paul exclaims: “I can do all things in Jesus Christ, who strengthens me” ( Phil. 4: 13 ). Isn’t it even more surprising than this, our Lord Jesus Christ says about those who believe in Him: “He who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will also create, and more than these, because I am going to My Father. […] And I beseech the Father… and your joy will be perfect. Until now you have asked nothing in My name; Ask, and receive… ( John 14: 12, 16 ; John 15: 11 ; John 16: 24 ).

Therefore, your love for God, whatever you ask of the Lord God, you will accept everything, as long as it is for the glory of God or for the benefit of your neighbor, because He also refers the benefit of your neighbor to His glory, which is why He says: “Since you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it . So have no doubt that the Lord God will not fulfill your requests, so that only they relate either to the glory of God, or to the benefit and teaching of their neighbors. But even if you need anything for your own need, or benefit, or benefit, and even if it is just as quickly and obediently the Lord God will allow you to send it, so that the extreme need and necessity may come, because the Lord loves those who love Him; The LORD is good to all, and graceth and giveth also to those who do not call upon his name, and his bounty in all his works: but he will create the will of those who fear him, and hear their prayer, and do all counsel, the Lord will grant all thy request. Fear one thing, your God-love, so as not to ask the Lord for what you do not desperately need. The Lord will not deny you that for your Orthodox faith in Christ the Savior, because the Lord will not betray the rod of the righteous and will create the will of His servant David steadfastly, but will charge him for why he bothered Him unnecessarily, asked Him for something without which he could be very convenient.

So, your God-love, I have told you everything now and have actually shown that the Lord and Mother of God through me, poor Seraphim, deigned to tell and show you. Come in peace. May the Lord and Mother of God be with you always, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Come in peace!

And during all this conversation, from the very time when Father Seraphim’s face was illuminated, this vision did not cease, and from the beginning of the story until now he told me everything that has been said, being in the same position. The indescribable radiance of light emanating from him, I saw myself, with my own eyes, which I am ready to confirm with an oath.

* * *

This is where the Motovyliv manuscript ends. It is not for me to clarify and emphasize the depth of the significance of this act of the solemnity of Orthodoxy, and it does not require witness to itself, because it bears witness to itself with such indomitable force that its significance cannot be diminished by the reasoning of this world.

But if someone could see in what form I got Motovilov’s papers, which kept in their hiding places this precious evidence of the God-pleasing life of the holy elder! Dust, gallop and pigeon feathers, bird droppings, fragments of completely uninteresting accounts, accounting, agricultural statements, copies of requests, letters from strangers – all in one heap, mixed with each other, and weighing only 4 poods 25 pounds. All the papers are old, written off in fluent and so illegible handwriting that I was simply horrified: where to figure it out?!

Sorting through this chaos, stumbling upon all sorts of obstacles, especially handwriting was a stumbling block for me, I, I remember, almost succumbed to despair. And here, in the midst of all this waste paper, no, no, and a spark flashes like a spark in the darkness of a hard-to-understand phrase: “Father Fr. Seraphim told me… What did he say? What do these unsolved hieroglyphs hide? I was desperate.

I remember, in the evening of a whole day of hard and fruitless work, I could not stand it and begged: “Father Seraphim! Is that why you gave me the opportunity to receive the manuscripts of your “servant” from such a distance as Diveyev, in order to return them unsorted to oblivion?”

From the heart, it must have been my exclamation. In the morning, starting to analyze the papers, I immediately found this manuscript, and immediately gained the ability to make out Motovyliv’s handwriting. It is not difficult to imagine my joy, and how significant the words of this manuscript seemed to me: “And I think,” Fr. Seraphim answered me, “that the Lord will help you to keep this in your memory forever, because otherwise His goodness would not have inclined so instantly to my humble supplication and would not have warned you to listen so quickly to poor Seraphim, especially since “and it is not given to you alone to understand this, and through you – for the whole world…”

For seventy long years, this treasure lay under a pile in the attics, among various forgotten rubbish. It was necessary for him to get into print, and even more so just before the glorification of the holy relics of the one whom the Orthodox Church begins to ask: “Reverend Father Seraphim, pray to God for us!”

19 May 1903

Spiritual Guidance to the Laity and Monks

“Spiritual Teachings” by Rev. Fr. Seraphim was collected, recorded and published for the first time by the tonsured of the Sarov Hermitage, Fr. Sergius, who was later a hieromonk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and archimandrite of the Vysotsky Serpukhov Monastery. The same author wrote the first biography of Fr. Seraphim, compiled in 1837.

St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow (glorified as a saint on December 4, 1994), who always deeply revered the great Sarov elder and ascetic, himself revised and corrected the works of Fr. Sergius in order to remove possible obstacles to printing.

On August 2, 1838, he wrote to his abbot, Archimandrite Anthony: “I send you, Father Abbot, the Teachings, or spiritual instructions I have reviewed, Fr. Seraphim. I have allowed myself to change or supplement some statements, in part so that the language is more correct, in part so that thoughts, not sufficiently fully and not sufficiently commonly expressed, are protected from misunderstanding or from negotiation. Look and tell me if it is possible to think that I have not distorted or damaged the elder’s thoughts somewhere.”

In 1839, “Spiritual Teachings” by Rev. Seraphim saw the light of day, but not together with the life of St. Seraphim. Elder, and in the book: “A brief depiction of the life of the elder of the Sarov Hermitage, schemamonk and hermit Mark.”

The life of Rev. Seraphim, compiled by Fr. Sergius, after many and long troubles of Metropolitan Filaret, was published only in 1841.

About God

God is the fire that warms and ignites hearts and wombs. Therefore, if we feel in our hearts the coldness of the devil, because the devil is cold, then we will call on the Lord, and when He comes, He will warm our heart with perfect love, not only for Him, but also for our neighbor. And in the name of warmth, he will drive out the cold of the well-hater.

Parents wrote when asked: seek the Lord, but do not test where he lives.

Where God is, there is no evil. Everything that comes from God is peaceful and beneficial and leads man to humility and self-condemnation.

God shows us His love for humanity not only when we do good, but also when we insult and anger Him. How long he endureth our iniquities! And when he punishes, how well he punishes!

Do not call God just, says the Monk Isaac, because His justice is not visible in your works. If David called Him just and right, His Son showed us that He is more kind and merciful. Where is His justice? We were sinners, and Christ died for us (Isaac Sir. Sl. 90).

When man is perfected before God, walk after Him, but in the true age God reveals His face to him. For the righteous, as they enter into his contemplation, will see the image as in a mirror, and there they will see the manifestation of truth.

If you do not know God, it is impossible for love for Him to be aroused in you; and you cannot love God unless you see Him. And the vision of God comes from the knowledge of Him, for the contemplation of Him does not precede the knowledge of Him.

The works of God should not be discussed in the nourishment of the womb: for in a filled womb there is no knowledge of the mysteries of God.

On the reasons for the coming of Jesus Christ into the world

The reasons for the coming into the world of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, are:

1. God’s love for the human race: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life ( John 3:16 ).

2. The restoration of the image and likeness of God in fallen man, as the Holy Church sings about it (1st canon on the Nativity of the Lord, canto 1): “Having rotted by crime according to God’s image of the former, all decay of existence, the Divine life falling away is better, while the wise Sodetel” is renewed.

3. Salvation of human souls: For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him ( John 3:17 ).

Therefore, in keeping to the purpose of our Redeemer our Lord Jesus Christ, we must accompany our lives according to His divine teaching, so that through this we may receive salvation for our souls.

About faith

First of all, he must believe in God, that he exists, and to those who seek Him, he gives (Heb. 11:6).

Faith, according to the teaching of the Monk Antiochus, is the beginning of our union with God: a true believer is the stone of the temple of God, prepared for the edifice of God the Father, raised to a height by the power of Jesus Christ, i.e. cross, with the help of vervium, i.e. grace of the Holy Spirit.

Faith without works is dead ( James 2:26 ); And the works of faith are: love, peace, long-suffering, mercy, humility, the cross and life according to the Spirit. Only such a belief is placed in the truth. True faith cannot be without works: he who truly believes certainly has works.

On hope

All who have a firm hope in God are reduced to Him and are illumined by the radiance of eternal light.

If a person does not have any care for himself for the love of God and works of virtue, knowing that God cares for him, such hope is true and wise. And if a person himself takes care of his own affairs and turns to God with prayer only when his inevitable troubles are already comprehending him and he sees no means to their disgust in his own power and begins to hope for God’s help, such hope is vain and false. True hope seeks the one Kingdom of God and is confident that all earthly things necessary for temporary life will undoubtedly be given. The heart cannot have peace until it finds this hope. She will pacify him and pour joy into him. Of this hope the most adorable and holy lips said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” ( Matt. 11:28). ), i.e. trust in me, and you will be comforted by toil and fear.

In the Gospel of Luke it is said of Simeon: It was foretold to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he saw Christ of the Lord ( Luke 2:26 ). And he did not mortify his hope, but waited for the desired Savior of the world, and, joyfully receiving Him in his arms, said: “Now you are sending Your servant away, O Lord, according to Your word, in peace, for my eyes have seen Your salvation” (Luke 2:29).

On the love of God

One who has attained perfect love for God exists in this life as if he did not exist. For he considers himself a stranger to the visible, waiting patiently for the invisible. He changed all into the love of God and forgot all other love.

He who loves himself cannot love God. And he who does not love himself for the love of God loves God.

He who truly loves God considers himself a wanderer and a stranger on this earth: for with his soul and mind in his pursuit of God he contemplates Him alone.

A soul full of God’s love, when it leaves its body, will not be afraid of the prince of the air, but will fly with the Angels, as from a foreign country to its homeland.

Against overcare

Excessive concern for the things of life is characteristic of an unbelieving and cowardly person. And woe to us if, taking care of ourselves, we are not confirmed by our hope in God, we care for us! If we do not attribute the visible goods we now enjoy to Him, how can we expect from Him the blessings that are promised in the future? Let us not be so unfaithful, but rather seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you, according to the word of the Savior ( Matt. 6:33 ).

It is better for us to despise what is not ours, that is. temporary and transient, and to desire ours, i.e. incorruptibility and immortality. For if we are imperishable and immortal, then we will be worthy of visible contemplation of God, like the apostles at the Divine Transfiguration, and we will partake of the higher rational union with God, like the heavenly minds. For we shall be like angels: and sons of God, sons of resurrection (Luke 20:36).

About caring for the soul

A person is like a lit candle in body. The candle must burn out, so the person must die. But the soul is immortal, therefore our concern should be more for the soul than for the body: what good is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and harms his soul? Or what ransom will a man give for his soul? ( Mark 8:36-37 ), for which, as you know, nothing in the world can be a ransom? If one soul in itself is more precious than peace and the kingdom of the world, then the Kingdom of Heaven is incomparably more expensive. We honor the soul most dearly for the reason, as Macarius the Great says, that God did not deign to communicate with anything and unite with His spiritual being, with any visible creature, but with one person, whom He loved most of His creatures (Macarius the Great Homily on the Freedom of the Mind). Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Ambrose of Mediolan, and others were virgins from their youth to the end of their lives; their whole life was turned under the care of the soul, not the body. In the same way, we should have all our efforts for the soul; but the body is to be strengthened only in order that it may contribute to the strengthening of the spirit.

What should provide for the soul?

The soul must be provided with the word of God: for the word of God, as Gregory the Theologian says, is the bread of angels, by which souls that seek God are nourished. More than anything, he should practice reading the New Testament and the Psalter, which should be done by the one who stands. From this there is enlightenment in the mind, which is replaced by God’s change.

It is necessary to train oneself in such a way that the mind, as it were, floats in the law of the Lord, which, being guided by it, must also arrange its life.

It is very helpful to engage in reading the word of God alone and to read the entire Bible wisely. For one such exercise, in addition to other good deeds, the Lord will not leave a person by His mercy, but will fulfill his gift of understanding.

But when a person provides his soul with the word of God, then he is filled with an understanding of what is good and what is evil.

The reading of the word of God must be done in solitude, so that the whole mind of the venerable one may be deeply immersed in the truths of the Holy Scriptures and receive from this in itself the warmth that alone produces tears; From this, a person is warmed all and is filled with spiritual gifts that delight the mind and heart more than any word.

Carnal labor and exercise in the Divine Scriptures, taught by the Venerable Isaac the Syrian, guard purity.

Until he accepts the Comforter, man needs the Divine Scriptures, so that the memory of the good is imprinted in his mind and from unceasing reading the desire for good is renewed in him and protects his soul from the subtle paths of sin (Isaac Sir. 58).

It is also necessary to provide the soul with knowledge of the Church, as it has been preserved from the beginning to this day, what it has endured at one time or another – to know this not in order to want to guide people, but in case questions may arise.

Most of all, it will do its own for itself, in order to acquire the peace of the soul, according to the teaching of the Psalmist: Great is the world of those who love your law ( Ps.118: 165 ).

About peace of mind

There is nothing better in Christ than a world in which every curse of the spirits of the air and earth is destroyed: for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spirits of wickedness in heaven (Eph. 6:12).

A sign of a rational soul, when a person immerses his mind inside himself and has an action in his heart. Then the grace of God overshadows him, and he is in a peaceful disposition, and because of this in a pre-peaceful one: in a peaceful one, that is. with a good conscience, but in the most peaceful, for the mind contemplates within itself the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Is it possible, seeing the sun with sensual eyes, not to rejoice? But how much more joyful is it when the mind sees with the inner eye the Sun of truth, Christ. Then he truly rejoices in angelic joy; About this the Apostle said: And our dwelling in heaven ( Phil. 3:20 ).

When someone walks in a peaceful building, he seems to draw spiritual gifts from a lie.

The Holy Fathers, having a peaceful constitution and being illuminated by the grace of God, lived a long time.

When a person comes to a peaceful disposition, then he can pour out from himself and others the light of the education of the mind; First of all, a person needs to repeat these words of Anna the prophetess: do not let presumptuous words go out of your mouth ( 1 Samuel 2:3 ), and the words of the Lord: first take the log out of your eye, and then you will see how to take the speck out of your brother’s eye ( Matt. 7:5 ).

This world, as a priceless treasure, our Lord Jesus Christ left to His disciples before His death, saying: “I leave peace with you, My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). The Apostle also speaks of him: “And the world of God, which is above all understanding, keeps your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus ( Phil. 4:7 ). If a person does not hate worldly needs, he cannot have peace of soul.

The peace of the soul is gained by sorrows. The Scripture says: we have entered into fire and water, and You have brought us free ( Ps.65:12 ). For those who want to please God, the path lies through many sorrows.

Nothing is more conducive to the acquisition of inner peace than silence and, as far as possible, continuous conversation with oneself and rare with others.

Therefore, we must concentrate all our thoughts, desires and actions on receiving the peace of God and always cry out with the Church: Lord! You give us peace ( Isaiah 26:12 ).

On the preservation of peace of mind

By all measures one must try to preserve the peace of mind and resent the insults of others; To do this, you need to try in every possible way to restrain anger and with the help of attention of the mind and heart, adhere to obscene movements.

Such an exercise can bring silence to the human heart and make it an abode for God himself.

We see the image of such angerlessness on Gregory the Wonderworker, from whom in a public place the wife of a certain harlot asked for a bribe, allegedly for a sin committed with her; And he, not in the least angry with her, gently said to a friend of his, “Give her the price she demands.” The wife, as soon as she accepted an unrighteous reward, was attacked by a demon; the saint drove the demon away from her by prayer (Cheti Menei, November 17, in his life).

If it is impossible, in order not to be indignant, then, at least, one should try to keep the tongue, according to the verb of the psalmist: I am amazed and cannot speak ( Ps.76:5 ).

In this case, we will be able to take St. Spyridon Trimifuntsky and off. Ephraim the Syrian. The first (Thurs. Min., Dec. 12, in his life) bore the insult in the following way: when, at the request of the king of Greece, he entered the palace, one of the servants in the king’s chamber of the former ones, considering him a beggar, laughed at him, did not let him into the chamber, and then struck him in the field; St. Spyridon, being without malice, according to the word of the Lord, converted to him another ( Matt. 5:39 ). Off. Ephraim (Thurs. Min., January 28, in his life), while fasting in the wilderness, was deprived of food by the disciple in the following way: the disciple, bringing him food, crushed a vessel on the way, reluctantly. The monk, seeing the sad disciple, said to him: “Do not grieve, brother, if he does not want to come to us for food, then we will go to her,” and he went, sat down by the sorrowful vessel and, gathering food, tasted it: so he was without anger.

And how to overcome anger, this can be seen from the life of the great Paisius (Thurs. Min., June 19, in his life), who asked the Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared to him, to release him from anger; And Christ said to him: “If you want to conquer anger and rage together, you will not want anything, neither hate anyone, nor humiliate.”

In order to preserve the peace of mind, one must distance oneself from despair and try to have a joyful spirit, not a sad one, according to Sirach: for sorrow has killed many, but there is no profit in it ( Sirach 30:25 ).

When a person has a big lack of things necessary for the body, it is difficult to defeat despondency. But this, of course, should apply to weak souls.

In order to preserve the peace of mind, one must also avoid condemning others in every possible way. By non-judgment and silence, the peace of the soul is preserved: when a person is in such a structure, he receives Divine revelations.

To preserve the peace of mind, you need to enter yourself more often and ask: where am I? At the same time, it should be observed that the bodily senses, especially sight, serve the inner man and do not entertain the soul with sensual objects, because only those who have an inner work and care for their souls receive grace-filled gifts.

About heart storage

We must strictly guard our hearts from indecent thoughts and impressions, according to the Tide: “Your heart is preserved the most, because from it are the fountains of life ( Prov. 4:23 ).

From the vigilant preservation of the heart, purity is born in it, for which the vision of the Lord is accessible, according to the assurance of the eternal Truth: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God ( Matt. 5:8 ).

What has escaped into the heart of the best, we should not pour out unnecessarily; For then only what is gathered can be safe from visible and invisible enemies, when it is stored as a treasure in the bowels of the heart.

The heart then only boils, being kindled by the Divine fire, when there is living water in it; but when everything is poured out, it grows cold, and the person freezes.

About thoughts and bodily movements

We must be clean from unclean thoughts, especially when we offer prayer to God, because there is no agreement between stench and incense. Where there are thoughts, there is addition with them. Therefore, we should repel the first attack of sinful thoughts and dispel them from the ground of our heart. So far, the children are Babylonian, that is. evil thoughts, still infants, must break and destroy them against the stone that is Christ; especially the three main passions – gluttony, love of money and vanity, with which the devil tried to tempt even our Lord Himself at the end of His struggle in the wilderness.

The devil, like a lion, hiding in a secret place ( Ps. 9:30 ), secretly sets for us the nets of impure and ungodly thoughts. Therefore, immediately, as we shall see, it is necessary to tear them apart with the help of pious reflection and prayer.

It takes a feat and great vigilance so that during the psalm our mind is in harmony with our hearts and lips, so that in our prayer the stench does not mix incense. For the Lord abhors the heart with impure thoughts.

Let us tirelessly, day and night, with tears throw ourselves down before the face of God’s goodness, may He cleanse our hearts from all evil thoughts, so that we may worthily walk the path of our vocation and offer Him with clean hands the gifts of our service.

If we do not agree with the evil thoughts invested by the devil, then we do good. An unclean spirit has a strong influence only on passionate ones; and to those who have cleansed themselves of passions, it is affected only from the outside, or from the outside.

Is it possible for a person at a young age not to burn and not be indignant from carnal thoughts? But we must pray to the Lord God, let the spark of vicious passions be extinguished at the very beginning. Then the flame of passions will not intensify in a person.

On the recognition of the actions of the heart

When a person accepts something Divine, the heart rejoices; and when it is diabolical, it is confused.

The Christian heart, having received something Divine, does not require anything else from the conviction of whether it is true from the Lord; but by this action he is convinced that it is heavenly: for he feels in himself spiritual fruits: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, mercy, faith, gentleness, temperance ( Gal. 5:22 ).

On the contrary, at least the devil turned into an Angel of Light ( 2 Corinthians 11:14 ), or represented plausible thoughts; However, the heart still feels some kind of ambiguity and excitement in thoughts. Explaining that, St. Macarius of Egypt says: “Even if (Satan) imagines even bright visions, he will by no means be able to do good both actions: because of which there is a well-known sign of his deeds” (Homily 4, ch. 13).

Thus, from these various actions of the heart, a person can know what is divine and what is diabolical, as St. Nicholas writes. Gregory of Sinai: “For from action you can know the light that has been sown in your soul, whether it is God’s or Satan’s” (Philanthropy, Part 1. Gregory of Sinai, On Silence).

On repentance

He who wishes to be saved must always have a heart to repentance, disposed and contrite, according to the Psalmist: A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; O God, O God, you will not despise a sorrowful and humble heart ( Psalm 50:19 ). In what despair can a man conveniently pass through the cunning machinations of the proud devil, whose whole effort is to outrage the spirit of man and to sow his tares in indignation, according to the word of the Gospel: Lord, have you not sown good seed in your field? Where did the tares come from? And he said to them, “The enemy of man has done this ( Matt. 13:27-28 ).

When a person tries to have a humble heart and a thought, not disturbed, but peaceful, then all the enemy’s intrigues are inactive, because where the world of thoughts is, there rests the Lord God Himself – in the world His place is ( Psalm 75:3 ).

The beginning of repentance comes from the fear of God and attention, as the martyr Boniface says (Cheti Menei, December 19, in his life): “The fear of God is attention, and attention is the mother of inner peace, because the conscience that does this gives birth to the conscience that does this, and the soul, as in its water, so are the beginnings and the root of repentance born.”

All our lives we have offended the majesty of God with our falls, and therefore we must always humble ourselves before Him, asking for the forgiveness of our debts.

Can you possess a person after falling to rebel?

It is possible, according to the Psalmist: They pushed me hard so that I fell, but the Lord supported me ( Ps.117:13 ), because when Nathan the prophet rebuked David for his sin, he, repenting, immediately received forgiveness ( 2 Samuel 12:13 ).

An example of this is the hermit who, who went to fetch water, fell into sin with his wife at the spring, and returning to the cell, realizing his sin, while he began to accompany the ascetic life, as before, without listening to the advice of the enemy, who presented him with the gravity of sin and led him away from the gravity of sin and led him away. God revealed this incident to a certain father and commanded a brother who had fallen into sin to be blessed for such a victory over the devil.

When we sincerely repent of our sins and turn to our Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart, He rejoices in us, establishes a feast and summons to it the powers dear to Him, showing them the drachma that He has found yet, that is. His royal image and likeness. Placing the lost sheep on His shoulders, He brings it to His Father. In the dwellings of all who rejoice, God also dwells the soul of those who repented together with those who did not flee from Him.

Therefore, let us not hate turning to our blessed Sovereign soon, nor let us give ourselves over to serenity and despair for the sake of our grave and innumerable sins. Despair is the complete joy of the devil. It is a sin unto death, as the Scripture says ( 1 John 5: 16 ).

Repentance of sin, by the way, consists in not doing it again. As every disease is a cure, so every sin is repentance. So, surely proceed to repentance, and it will intercede for you before God.

About prayer

Those who truly choose to serve the Lord God should practice the memory of God and unceasing prayer to Jesus Christ, saying with their minds: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”; and in the afternoon you can say this prayer as follows: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, through the prayers of the Mother of God, have mercy on me a sinner”; or to resort to the Most Holy Theotokos proper, praying: “Most Holy Theotokos, save us”; or say an angelic greeting: “Virgin Theotokos, rejoice.”

By such an exercise, protecting oneself from distraction and observing the world of conscience, one can get closer to God and unite with Him. For, according to St. Isaac the Syrian , except by unceasing prayer, we cannot get closer to God (Homily 69).

The image of prayer was well placed by St. Simeon the New Theologian (Philanthropy, Part 1). Her dignity was very well depicted by St. St. Chrysostom: “Great prayer,” he says, “is a great weapon, an inexhaustible treasure, wealth is never maintained, a refuge without waves, the root of silence of wine and darkness of good things, a source and a mother” (Margaret, Homily 5. On the Incomprehensible).

In church, it is useful to stand at prayer with your eyes closed in your inner attention; but to open your eyes only when you are sad, or sleep will weigh you down and incline you to slumber; Then you need to turn your eyes to the image and to the candle burning in front of it.

If in prayer he happens to be captivated by the theft of his mind, then he should humble himself before the Lord God and ask forgiveness, saying: “Sinners, Lord, in word, deed, thought, and all my feelings.”

Therefore, one should always try not to betray oneself to the scattering of thoughts, because because of this the soul evades the memory of God and His love by the action of the devil, like St. Paul. Macarius says: “All this is contrary to our efforts this thought will turn away from the memory of God and fear and love” (Homily 2:ch. 15).

When the mind and heart are united in prayer and the thoughts of the soul are not dispersed, then the heart is warmed by spiritual warmth, in which the light of Christ will shine, fulfilling the peace and joy of the whole inner man.

About tears

All the holy and renounced monks of the world wept all their lives in the hope of eternal consolation, according to the assurance of the Savior of the world: Blessed are they weeping, for they will be comforted ( Matt. 5:4 ).

In the same way, we should weep for the forgiveness of our sins. May the words of the Porphyry-bearer convince us of this: He who bears the seed with weeping will return with joy, bearing his sheaves ( Ps.125:6 ), and the words of St. Paul. Isaac the Syrian: “Thy doe, let thy doe weep unto thy eyes, let the Holy Spirit rest upon thee, and wash thee from the filth of thy wickedness. Have mercy on your Lord with tears, let him come to you” (Homily 68, On the Renunciation of the World).

When we cry in prayer and laughter immediately intervenes, it is from the devil’s cunning. It is difficult to comprehend the enemy of our secret and subtle actions.

Those who have tears of tenderness, such a heart will be illuminated by the rays of the Sun of Truth – Christ God.

On the Light of Christ

In order to receive and see the light of Christ in the heart, it is necessary, as much as possible, to distract oneself from visible objects. Having purified the soul with repentance and good works, and with faith in the Crucified One, closing the eyes of the flesh, one should immerse one’s mind inside one’s heart and cry out the invocation of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and then, to the extent of diligence and fervor of spirit towards the Beloved, a person finds in the invoked name a pleasure that excites the desire to seek higher education.

When, through such an exercise, the mind is removed from the heart, then the light of Christ will shine, illuminating the temple of the soul with its Divine radiance, as the prophet Malachi says: The Sun of righteousness will rise and healing in His rays (Mal. 4:2).

This light is the heap and life according to the word of the Gospel: In Him was life, and life was the light of men ( John 1:4 ).

When a person contemplates the eternal light inwardly, then his mind is pure and has no sensual ideas in itself, but, being all immersed in the contemplation of uncreated goodness, he forgets everything sensual, does not want to mature himself; but wants to hide in the heart of the earth, so as not to lose this true good – God.

About attention to yourself

The one who passes through the path of attention should not believe only in his heart alone, but must believe his heart actions and his life with the law of God and with the active life of the ascetics of piety who underwent such a feat. With this remedy, it is more convenient to get rid of the evil one, and to see the truth more clearly.

The mind of an attentive person is like a set watchman, or a vigilant guardian of inner Jerusalem. Standing at the height of spiritual contemplation, he looks with the eye of purity at those that bypass and strike at his soul unpleasant forces, according to the Psalmist: and my eye looked at my enemies ( Ps. 53:9 ).

The devil is not hidden from his eye, like a roaring lion, looking for whom to devour ( 1 Pet. 5:8 ), and those who stretch their bow to shoot at the right in the dark with their hearts ( Ps. 10:2 ).

Therefore, such a person, following the teachings of the Divine Paul, accepts the whole armor of God, so that you can resist in the evil day ( Eph. 6:13 ), and with these weapons, which contributes to the grace of God, reflects visible objections and defeats invisible warriors.

This passage should not listen to extraneous rumors, from which the head can be filled with empty and vain thoughts and memories, but should be attentive to oneself.

Especially on this path it is necessary to observe so as not to turn to other people’s affairs, not to think and not to talk about them, according to the Psalmist: “My mouth does not speak the works of men ( Ps. 16:4 ), but to pray to the Lord: Cleanse me from my secrets, and keep Your servant from the deliberate ones ( Psalm 18:1 ).

A person should pay attention to the beginning and end of his life, but to the middle, where happiness or misfortune happens, he should be indifferent. To maintain attention, you need to withdraw into yourself, according to the Lord’s verb: greet no one on the road ( Luke 10: 4 ), i.e. Needless to say, someone is running after you to hear something useful from you.

On the fear of God

A person who has taken it upon himself to walk the path of inner attention must first of all have the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom.

These prophetic words should always be printed in his mind: Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice [before Him] with trembling ( Ps.2:11 ).

He must walk this path with extreme caution and reverence for all that is sacred, and not carelessly. Otherwise, one must be afraid that this God’s definition will not apply to him: Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord carelessly ( Jer. 48:10 ).

Reverent caution is needed here in order for this sea, large and spacious: there are reptiles that are innumerable ( Ps.103: 25 ), i.e. Many thoughts are vain, wrong and impure, the creation of evil spirits, i.e. the heart with its thoughts and desires, which it must purify with the help of attention.

Fear God, says the All-Wise, and keep His commandments ( Ecclesiastes 12:13 ). And by keeping the commandments, you will be strong in every business, and your business will always be good. For fearing God, out of love for Him, you will do all things well. And do not be afraid of the devil; he who fears God will overcome the devil: for this the devil is powerless.

Two kinds of fear: if you do not want to do evil, then fear the Lord and do not do it; but if you want to do good, then fear the Lord and do it.

But no one can gain the fear of God until he is freed from all the worries of life. When the mind is serene, then it is moved by the fear of God and drawn to the love of God’s goodness.

On the renunciation of the world

The fear of God is acquired when a person, having renounced the world and everything in the world, concentrates all his thoughts and feelings in one idea of the law of God and plunges all into the contemplation of God and into the feeling of the beatitude promised to the saints.

One cannot renounce the world and come to a state of spiritual contemplation, remaining in the world. For until the passions are satisfied, it is impossible to gain the peace of the soul. But passions will not be satisfied as long as we are surrounded by objects that excite passions. In order to come to perfect dispassion and achieve perfect silence of the soul, it takes a lot of struggle in spiritual reflection and prayer. But how can one fully and calmly immerse oneself in the contemplation of God and learn in His Law, and lift oneself up to Him with all one’s soul in fervent prayer, remaining amidst the irrepressible noise of the passions at war in the world? The world lies in evil.

Without freeing itself from the world, the soul cannot love God sincerely. For the vital, according to Rev. Antiochus, like a blanket for her.

“If we,” says the same teacher, “live in a strange city and our city is far from this city, and if we know our city, why do we tarry in a strange city and prepare fields and dwellings for ourselves in it? How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? ( Ps.136:4 ) This world is the domain of another, i.e. prince of this age” (Psalm 15).

About active and speculative life

A person consists of body and soul, and therefore the path of his life should consist of bodily and spiritual actions – of action and speculation.

The path of active life consists of: fasting, moderation, vigilance, bowing, prayer and other bodily feats, which constitute a narrow and sad path, which, according to the word of God, leads to eternal life. The path of speculative life consists in raising the mind to the Lord God, in heartfelt attention, intelligent prayer and contemplation of spiritual things through such exercises.

Everyone who wishes to go through the spiritual life must begin with the active life, and then come to the intellectual: for without an active life it is impossible to come to the intellectual.

An active life serves to cleanse us of sinful passions and elevates us to the level of active perfection; and thereby paves the way for us to a speculative life. For only those who have been purified from the passions and who are perfect can approach life, as can be seen from the words of the Holy Scriptures: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God ( Matt. 5: 8 ) and from the words of St. Paul. St. Gregory the Theologian: “Contemplation can be safely approached only by the most perfect in their experience” (Homily on Holy Easter).

He should approach the speculative life with fear and trembling, with contrition of heart and humility, with many trials of the Holy Scriptures and, if you can find it, under the guidance of some skillful elder, and not with audacity and self-actuality: “For he who is presumptuous and contemptuous,” according to Gregory of Sinai, is forced to mature prematurely. – And one more thing: if anyone dreams of attaining a high thought with a high thought, the desire of Satan, and not having obtained the truth, – the devil catches convenience with his nets as his servant “(On Beauty and Many Other Reasons, Philanthropy, Part 1).

If it is not possible to find a mentor who can guide us to a speculative life, then we should be guided by the Scriptures, because the Lord Himself commands us to learn from the Scriptures, saying: Search the Scriptures, for through them you think to have eternal life ( John 5:39 ).

In the same way, one should try to read the father’s writings and try, as much as possible, to do what they teach, and thus gradually from active life to the perfection of speculation.

For, according to St. St. Gregory the Theologian, the best thing is when we each achieve perfection by ourselves and offer to God, who calls us, a living, holy and always sanctified sacrifice (Homily on Holy Easter).

One should not abandon the active life even when a person would be successful in it and would have already come to speculative life: for it promotes speculative life and elevates it.

Passing through the path of inner and speculative life, one should not weaken and leave it because people who have stuck to appearance and sensuality amaze us with the displeasure of their thoughts into the very feeling of the heart, and in every possible way try to distract us from passing the inner path, supplying us with various obstacles to it. “Interpretation of the Song by Song”), the mind of spiritual things prefers the knowledge of sensual things. Therefore, one should not hesitate by any contradictions in the passage of this path, affirm in this case on the word of God: do not be afraid of what he fears, and do not be afraid. Honor the Lord of hosts – honor Him with a feast, and He is your fear ( Isaiah 8:12-13 ).

Of solitude and silence

More often than not, he should adorn himself with silence; For Ambrose of Mediola says: “By the silence of many I have seen those who are being saved, but by the multitude of verbs none.” And while one of the parents says: “Silence is the sacrament of the coming age, but words are instruments of this world” (Philanthropy, part 2, ch. 16).

You only sit in your cell in attention and silence and by all means try to draw yourself closer to the Lord, and the Lord is ready to make you an angel from a man: “Whom I will see,” He says, “the humble and sorrowful in spirit, and the one who trembles before the word ( Isaiah 66:2 ).

When we are in silence, then the enemy-devil does not have time to do anything about the secret heart of a person, this must be understood about silence in the mind.

Such a passing feat has to put all his hope in the Lord God, according to the teaching of the Apostle: “Cast all your worries on Him, for He cares for you” ( 1 Pet. 5:7 ). He must be constant in this feat, imitating in this case the example of St. John the Silent and Hermit (Chetya Menaia, Dec. 3, in his Life), who in the passage of this path was affirmed by these Divine words: “I will not forsake thee, nor forsake thee” (Heb. 13:5).

If it is not always possible to be in solitude and silence, living in a monastery and engaging in obediences laid down by the abbot, then at least some of the time left from obedience should be devoted to solitude and silence, and for this little thing the Lord God will not leave to send His rich mercy upon you.

From solitude and silence are born tenderness and gentleness; the action of the latter in the human heart can be likened to the still water of Siloam, which flows without noise or sound, as the prophet Isaiah says about it: the waters of Siloam flowing quietly ( Isaiah 8:6 ).

Staying in the cell in silence, exercise, prayer and instruction day and night of the law of God makes a person pious, because, according to St. fathers, the monk’s cell is “the furnace of Babylon, in which three young men found the Son of God” (Philanthropy, part 3. Peter of Damascus, book 1).

A monk, according to Ephraim the Syrian, will not stay in one place for long if he does not love silence and moderation before. For silence teaches silence and constant prayer, and moderation makes thought unreasonable. Finally, he has obtained a state of peace (vol. 2).

About verbosity

One verbosity with those who have unpleasant tempers with us is enough to upset the insides of an attentive person.

But what is more terrible is that this can extinguish the fire that our Lord Jesus Christ came to the earth of human hearts: for it is worthless that the fire is so cold, from the Holy Spirit it is breathed into the heart of the monk to the sanctification of the soul, as reasoning and verbiage, and Self.

One should especially guard oneself from dealing with the female sex: for just as a wax candle, although not lit, but placed between the bridegroom, melts, so the heart of a monk from an interview with the female sex imperceptibly relaxes, as St. Nicholas says. Isidore Pelusiot says thus: “If (I say to the Scriptures) such conversations corrupt evil customs of good: then conversation with wives, if there be good, for it is strong to corrupt the inner man secretly with evil thoughts, and the pure being, which will be the stone of God, softer, adoring constant diligence and essence wins; But when the being, which is barely mobile, labors, and suffers and diminishes from that thing which the mother has nothing, then as the human will, which is convenience, hesitates, it will not be defeated and transformed by a long custom” (Isidore Pelusiotes2; February 4, in his life).

Therefore, in order to preserve the inner man, one must try to keep the tongue from verbosity: but a wise man is silent ( Proverbs 11:12 ), and he who keeps his mouth guards his soul ( Prov. 13:3 ).

Having not first heard from someone about some subject, one should not answer: what (for) the word says before hearing is foolishness and shame to him ( Proverbs 18:13 ).

About silence

Off. Barsonophius teaches: “As long as the ship is at sea, it endures troubles and the defeat of the winds, and when it reaches a quiet and peaceful shelter, it is no longer afraid of troubles and sorrows and the defeat of the winds, but remains in silence. In the same way, a monk, as long as you remain with people, expect sorrows and troubles, and the defeat of imaginary winds; but when you enter into silence, you have nothing to fear” (Barsanuphius Vel. and John, Rev. 8:9).

“Perfect silence is the cross on which man must crucify himself with all passions and lusts. But think, our Lord Christ, how much contempt and insult you have suffered beforehand, and then ascended to the cross. In the same way, we cannot come to perfect silence and hope for holy perfection if we do not endure with Christ. For the Apostle says, “If we suffer with Him, we shall be glorified with Him.” There is no other way” (Barsanuphius, Vel. Rev. 342).

He who has come into silence must tirelessly remember why he came, so that his heart does not turn to something else.

About fasting

Our Lord Jesus Christ, before performing the feat of redemption of the human race, strengthened Himself by a long fast. And all the ascetics, beginning to work for the Lord, armed themselves with fasting and entered the path of the baptized in no other way than in the feat of fasting. They measured the greatest successes in asceticism by successes in fasting.

Fasting is not about eating rarely, but about eating little; and not to eat once, but not to eat much. Foolish is the faster, who waits for a certain hour, and at the hour of the meal he indulges in an insatiable taste both in body and mind. In food considerations, one should also observe the fact that one does not distinguish between tasty and tasteless food. This business, inherent in animals, is unworthy of praise in an intelligent person. We refuse pleasant food in order to subdue the warring members of the body and give freedom to the actions of the spirit.

True fasting is not only about exhausting the flesh, but also about giving the part of the bread that you yourself would like to eat to the hungry.

The holy people did not begin strict fasting suddenly, gradually and gradually becoming able to be content with the poorest food. Off. Dorotheus, accustoming his disciple Dositheus to fasting, gradually subtracted a small part from the table, so that from four pounds the measure of his daily food was finally reduced to eight lots of bread.

For all this, the holy fasters, to the surprise of others, did not know relaxation, but they were always cheerful, strong and ready for work. Diseases between them were rare, and their life flowed extremely long.

To the extent that the body of the fasting person becomes subtle and light, the spiritual life comes to perfection and reveals itself to strange phenomena. Then the spirit does its actions as if in an incorporeal body. External senses are precisely closed, and the mind, having renounced the earth, rises to heaven and is completely immersed in the contemplation of the spiritual world.

However, to impose on oneself a strict rule of moderation in everything or to deprive oneself of everything that can serve to alleviate infirmity, not everyone can accommodate this. Who can accommodate, will accommodate ( Matt.19: 12 ).

Food should be consumed daily so much that the body, having grown stronger, will be a friend and helper of the soul in the commission of virtue; Otherwise, it may be that, exhausted by the body, the soul weakens.

On Fridays and Wednesdays, especially on four fasts, eat food, following the example of your parents, once a day, and the angel of the Lord will stick to you.

About exploits

It is not necessary to perform feats excessively, but to try to make a friend – our flesh – faithful and capable of creating virtues.

One must follow the middle way, do not deviate to the right or to the left ( Prov. 4:27 ); to give spiritual things to the spirit, and bodily things to the body, which is necessary to maintain temporary life. Nor should public life deny what it legitimately requires of us, according to the words of the Scriptures: render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Matt. 22:21).

One should descend to one’s soul in its infirmities and imperfections and endure one’s shortcomings, as we tolerate the shortcomings of one’s neighbors, but not be lazy and tirelessly motivate oneself to the best.

Whether you have eaten much, or anything else like this, like the weakness of man, do not be indignant at this, do not add harm to harm; but, courageously urging yourself to correction, try to preserve the peace of mind, according to the words of the Apostle: Blessed is he who does not condemn himself in what he chooses ( Rom. 14:22 ).

The body, exhausted by feats or illnesses, should be strengthened by moderate sleep, food and drink, without even observing time. Jesus Christ, after the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter from death, immediately ordered her to be given food ( Luke 8: 55 ).

If we arbitrarily exhaust our body to the point that the spirit will also be exhausted, then such oppression will be reckless, even if it is done for the sake of gaining virtue.

Up to thirty-five years old, i.e. Until the halving of earthly life, a great feat happens to a person in preserving himself, and many in these years do not suit in virtue, but are distorted from the right path to their own wishes, as St. Nicholas says about it. Basil the Great testifies (in a conversation at the beginning of the book of Proverbs): “Many gathered a lot in their youth, but in the middle of their lives, the former ones, who rose up against them to temptations from the spirits of deceit, did not experience excitement, and lost all this. And therefore, in order not to undergo such a transformation, one must put oneself, as it were, on the measure of testing and careful observation of oneself, according to the teachings of St. Paul. Isaac the Syrian: as it is necessary to translate every dwelling place according to the yardstick” (Homily 40).

Any success in something we must attribute to the Lord and say with the prophet: Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory ( Ps.113:9 ).

Of wakefulness vs. temptation

We must always be attentive to the attacks of the devil: for can we hope that he will leave us without temptation, if he has not left our Champion Himself, and the Chief Agent of the faith and Doer, the Lord Jesus Christ? The Lord Himself said to the Apostle Peter: Simon! Simon! behold, Satan asked to sow you as wheat ( Luke 22: 31 ).

Therefore, we must always invoke the Lord in humility and pray, that He may not allow us to be a temptation beyond our strength, but that He may deliver us from the evil one.

For when the Lord leaves a man to himself, then the devil is ready to wipe him out, like a millstone grindstone.

About sadness

When the evil spirit of sorrow takes possession of the soul, then, having filled it with sorrow and trouble, it prevents it from praying with due diligence, prevents it from reading the scriptures with due attention, deprives it of its gentleness and complacency in dealing with its brethren, and gives birth to disgust from all. For the soul, full of sorrow, becoming as if crazy and frenzied, cannot calmly accept good advice, nor gently answer the questions offered. She runs away from people as the culprits of her embarrassment and does not understand that the cause of the disease is inside her. Sadness is the worm of the heart gnawing at the mother giving birth to it.

A sad monk does not move the mind to contemplation and can never do pure prayer.

Whoever defeated passions also defeated sadness. And he who is defeated by passions will not escape the shackles of sadness. As the patient can be seen by the complexion of his face, so possessing passion he exposes himself from sadness.

Who loves the world, it is impossible not to be upset. And a contemptuous world is always fun.

“As fire cleanses gold, so sorrow for God cleanses the sinful heart” (Anthony Great Word 25).

About boredom and despair

Boredom also acts inseparably with the spirit of sadness. She, according to the parents, attacks the monk around noon and causes such terrible anxiety in him that both the place of residence and the brothers living with him become unbearable for him, and when reading, some disgust, and frequent yawning, and strong thirst are aroused. After saturating the womb, the demon of boredom inspires the monk with the idea of leaving the cell and talking to someone, imagining that there is no other way to get rid of boredom than by constantly talking to others. And the monk, overcoming boredom, is like a desert brushwood, which stops a little, then again rushes with the wind. He is like a waterless cloud, driven by the wind.

This demon, if he cannot pull the monk out of his cell, then begins to entertain his mind during prayer and reading. This, the thought tells him, lies wrong, and this is not here, it must be put in order, and it does everything in order to make the mind empty and barren.

“This disease is cured by prayer, abstinence from vanity, feasible needlework, reading the word of God and patience; for it is born of cowardice, and idleness, and vanity” (Anthony the Great Homily 26; Isaac the Syrian, Homily 212).

It is difficult for her beginning to avoid monastic life, because she is the first to attack him. Therefore, first of all, one should beware of it with the help of strict and unquestioning fulfillment of all the duties assigned to the novice. When your occupations come into true order, then boredom will find no place in your heart. Only those who are not doing well are bored. Obedience, therefore, is the best cure against this dangerous disease.

When boredom overcomes you, then say to yourself, according to the instruction of Rev. Isaac the Syrian: “You again desire impurity and a shameful life. “And if the thought says to you, ‘It is a great sin to kill yourself,’ you shall say to him, ‘I am killing myself, because I cannot live uncleanly.’ I will die here so as not to see the true death – my soul in relation to God. It is better for me to die here for purity than to live an evil life in the world. I have preferred death over my sins. I will kill myself, because I have sinned against the Lord, and I will no longer provoke him to anger. Why should I live at a distance from God? I endure these bitterness, so as not to lose the heavenly hope. What will God have in my life if I live badly and anger Him?” (Fig. 22).

Another is boredom, and another is fatigue of spirit, called despair. Sometimes a person is in such a state of mind that it seems easier for him to destroy himself or be without any feeling and consciousness than to remain in this unconsciously painful state. You need to hurry out of it. “Fornication is from the spirit of disbelief, for from it all evil is born” (Barsanuphius Vel. Rev. 73, 500).

“There is natural sadness,” teaches St. Paul. Barsonophius, – from impotence, and there is despair from the devil. Do you want to know that? Try it this way: the demonic comes to the time when it has to give itself a rest. For when someone proposes to do something, it makes him sick of leaving the business and getting up before a third or a quarter of the work is done. Then you don’t need to listen to him, but you need to create a prayer and sit down with patience.

And the enemy, seeing that he is praying, withdraws, because he does not want to give an occasion for prayer” (Bari. Rev. 562-565).

“Whenever it pleases God,” says St. Isaac the Syrian – throwing a person into great sorrows, allows him to fall into the hands of cowardice. It gives birth to in him a strong force of despair, in which he feels spiritual tightness, and this is a premonition of Gehenna; As a result, he finds a spirit of frenzy, from which thousands of temptations come: embarrassment, rage, blasphemy, complaint about his fate, depraved thoughts, moving from place to place, etc. If you ask: what is the reason? then I will say: your negligence, because you did not bother to seek their cure. For there is only one cure for this, with the help of which a person soon finds solace in his soul. And what is this medicine? Humility of heart. With nothing but it, man can destroy the stronghold of these vices, but on the contrary he finds that these triumph over him” (Isaac the Syrian, Homily 79).

Disbelief in St. parents are sometimes called laziness, laziness and shedding.

Of despair

As the Lord cares about our salvation, so the murderer – the devil – tries to lead a person to despair.

Despair, according to the teachings of St. St. John the Leaf, is born either from the consciousness of many sins, despair of conscience and unbearable sadness, when the soul, covered with many ulcers, plunges into the depths of despair from their unbearable pain, or from pride and pride, when one considers himself not worthy of that sin. Despair of the first kind drags a person into all vices indiscriminately, and in despair of the second kind, a person still clings to his feat, which, according to St. Nicholas of Constantinople, is not the only one. John of the Ladder, and together the mind. The first is cured by moderation and good hope, and the second by humility and non-judgment of one’s neighbor (Ladder, Step. 26).

A high and firm soul does not despair in the face of misfortunes, whatever it may be. Judas the traitor was cowardly and unpretentious in his struggle, and therefore the enemy, seeing his despair, attacked him and forced him to choke; but Peter is a hard stone, when he fell into great sin, as a master in fighting, did not despair and did not lose his spirit, but shed bitter tears from a warm heart, and the enemy, seeing them burning with fire in his eyes, fled far away from him with a painful cry.

So, brothers, teaches Rev. Antiochus, when despair assails us, let us not submit to him, but, “being strengthened and guarded by the light of faith, let us say with great courage to the evil spirit: What do we have to do with you, alienated from God, a fugitive from heaven and an evil slave? You dare not do anything to us.

Christ, the Son of God, has power over us and over all things. We have sinned against him. We will come true to him. And you, pernicious, have left us. Strengthened by His honorable cross, we despise your serpent’s head” (Anthony 27).

About diseases

The body is the slave of the soul, the soul is the queen, and therefore it is the mercy of the Lord, when the body is exhausted by diseases; for this weakens the passions, and a person comes to his senses; and the most painful bodily illness is sometimes born of passions.

Take away sin, and there will be no sickness; For they are with us from sin, as St. Nicholas affirms. St. Basil the Great: “Where do the ailments come from? Where do the bodily injuries come from? The Lord created the body, not the disease; soul, not sin. What is the most useful and necessary? Connecting with God and communing with Him through love. Losing this love, we fall away from Him, and falling away, we are exposed to various and varied diseases” (The Word that God is not the cause of evil).

Those who endure the disease with patience and gratitude, so it is blamed instead of a feat or even more.

An elder who suffered from a water sickness said to the brothers who came to him with a desire to heal him: “Parents, pray that my inner man will not suffer such a disease; and as for the real disease, I ask God that He does not suddenly free me from it, because since our outer man is smoldering, the inner man is renewed from day to day ( 2 Corinthians 4:16 ).”

If it pleases the Lord God that a person suffers diseases, He will also give him the power of patience. So let the diseases not be from ourselves, but from God.

On positions and love of neighbor

Neighbors must be treated gently, without even making appearances of offense.

When we turn away from a person or insult him, then it is as if a stone falls on our heart.

The spirit of a confused or sad person should be tried to be encouraged with a word of love.

“To the brother of sin, cover him,” advises St. Isaac the Syrian, stretch your robe over the sinner and cover him. We all demand God’s mercy, as the Church sings: if it were not for the Lord to be in us, who is content to be saved from the enemy whole, then also murderers of man” (Psalm 89).

In relation to our neighbors, we must be, both in word and thought, pure and equal to all; otherwise we will make our life useless. We must love our neighbor no less than ourselves, according to the commandment of the Lord: love… your neighbor as yourself ( Luke 10:27 ). But it is not so that the love of neighbor, proceeding from the limits of moderation, distracts us from fulfilling the first and main commandment, i.e. love of God, as our Lord Jesus Christ teaches: He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me ( Matt.10: 37 ). This subject is very well discussed by St. Demetrius of Rostov: “There is seen a love that is false to God in the Christian man, where creation is compared to the Creator, or a greater creation than the Creator is honored; and there you can see true love, where one Creator loves and prefers more than all creatures “(part 2, floor 2).

On non-condemnation of one’s neighbor

No one should judge anyone, even if he sees with his own eyes someone sinful or loving in transgression of the commandments of God, according to the word of God: Judge not, let you not be judged ( Matt. 7:1 ), and until: Who are you that condemn another man’s servant? Before his Lord he stands or falls. And he will be restored, because God is strong to restore him ( Rom. 14:4 ).

It is much better to always remember these apostolic words: “To him who thinks he is standing, beware lest he fall” ( 1 Corinthians 10:12 ). For it is not known how long we can be in virtue, as the prophet says, having learned this by experience: And I said in my prosperity, I will not be shaken forever… Thou hast hid thy face, and I am ashamed ( Ps.29:7-8 ).

Why do we condemn our brothers? Because we do not try to know ourselves. Those who are busy knowing themselves have no time to notice others. You judge yourself and stop judging others.

We should consider ourselves sinners for all and forgive our neighbor for every bad deed, and hate only the devil who tempted him. It happens that it seems to us that the other is doing badly, but in fact, according to the good intention of the one who does, it is good. Moreover, the door of repentance is open to all, and it is not known who will ever enter into it: whether you who condemn or who are condemned by you.

“Condemn a bad deed, but do not condemn the one who does it. If you condemn your neighbor, – teaches Rev. Antiochus, then you are condemned with him in the same way that you condemn him.

It is not for us to judge or condemn, but to the one God and the Great Judge, who guides our hearts and the secret passions of our being” (Anthony Great Word 49). To get rid of condemnation, you should listen to yourself, do not accept extraneous thoughts from anyone and be to everything dead.

Therefore, beloved, let us not observe the sins of others, and condemn others, lest we hear: among the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongue is a sharp sword ( Ps. 56:5 ).

About forgiveness of offenses

For an insult that may not be inflicted, not only should he not be avenged, but, on the contrary, he should still forgive the offender from the heart, even if it opposes it, and persuade him with the conviction of the word of God: If you do not forgive men their trespasses, your Father will not forgive you your sins : Matt. you and those who persecute you ( Matt.5: 44 ).

He should not harbor anger or hatred in his heart towards his neighbor who is at war, but should love him and, as much as possible, do good to him, following the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ: love your enemies, bless those who curse you ( Matt. 5:44 ).

If someone humiliates or takes away your honor, then try by all means to forgive him, according to the word of the Gospel: from him who took yours, do not demand back ( Luke 6:30 ).

God has commanded us enmity only against the serpent, that is. against the one who meant seduced man and expelled him from paradise – against the murderer-devil. We are commanded to enmity against the Midianites, that is. against the unclean spirits of fornication and studiousness, who sow impure and evil thoughts in the heart.

We compare with the beloved of God; We compare the meekness of David, of whom the most good and loving Lord said: “I have found a man after my heart, who will fulfill all my desires. Thus He speaks of David, indomitable and kind to his enemies. And we will do nothing in revenge against our brother, so that, as Rev. Antiochus, there was no stopping during prayer.

God testified about Job as a man without malice ( Job 2:3 ); Joseph did not take revenge on his brothers who had plotted evil against him; Abel went with his brother Cain in simplicity and without suspicion. According to the testimony of the word of God, the saints all lived in innocence. Jeremiah, speaking to God ( Jer.18:20 ), says of Israel that persecuted him: Food is given to evil for good?

Therefore, if we try to do all this as much as we can, we can hope that the Divine light will shine in our hearts, illuminating our way to mountainous Jerusalem.

On Patience and Humility

One must always endure whatever happens, for God’s sake, with gratitude. Our life is one minute compared to eternity; and therefore, according to the Apostle, temporary suffering is worthless compared to the glory that will be revealed in us ( Rom. 8:18 ).

It is indifferent to endure insults from others and get used to such a mood, as if their insults do not concern us, but others. In silence, endure when the enemy insults you, and then open your heart to the Lord alone. When people disgrace us, we should consider ourselves unworthy of praise. If they were worthy, then everyone would bow to us.

We must always and in front of everyone humiliate ourselves, adhering to the teachings of St. John the Baptist. Isaac the Syrian: “Humble yourself, and you will see the glory of God in you” (Word 57).

Without light, everything is gloomy, and without humility there is nothing in a person, only darkness. Therefore, let us love humility and see the glory of God; For through that humility comes to pass, there the glory of God is exhausted.

Just as wax that is not heated and softened cannot accept the seal that is placed on it, so the soul, not tempted by labor and infirmity, cannot take upon itself the seal of the virtue of God. When the devil left the Lord, then the Angels came and served Him ( Matt.4: 11 ). Thus, if during temptations the Angels of God depart from us somewhat, then not far away, and soon they approach, and serve us with Divine thoughts, tenderness, pleasure, and patience. The soul, having worked, acquires other perfections. Therefore, St. The prophet Isaiah says: Those who hope in the Lord will be renewed in strength: they will lift up their wings like eagles, they will flow – and they will not grow weary, they will go – and they will not grow weary ( Isaiah 40:31 ).

So did the most meek David: for when Shimei blasphemed him, and threw stones at him, saying, Go, go, murderer and wicked, go, thou wicked man, he was not angry; And when Abishai was indignant at this, he said to him, “Why does this dead dog curse my lord the king?” – He rebuked him, saying: Let him curse, for the Lord will see and reward me well ( 2 Samuel 16:7-12 ). Wherefore he sang: I firmly trusted in the Lord, and He clung to me and heard my cry ( Ps. 39:2 ).

As a child-loving father, when he sees that his son lives disorderly, he punishes him; and when he sees that he is faint-hearted, and bears his punishment with difficulty, then he comforts: so does the good Lord and our Father do to us, using all things for our benefit, both for comfort and punishment, according to His love for mankind, and therefore we, being in afflictions, are humble as children. For if we thank Him only in prosperity, we shall be like the ungrateful Jews, who, having had their fill of an amazing meal in the wilderness, said that Christ was truly a prophet, wanted to take Him and make Him king, and when He said to them, Seek not perishable food, but food that is in it. Signs?… Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness ( John 6:27–31 ). The word falls right on such people: although during his life he pleases his soul, and they praise you for satisfying yourself, yet he will go to the generation of his fathers, who will never see the light ( Ps.48:19-20 ).

That is why the Apostle James teaches us: Receive with great joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the trial of your faith makes patience; but patience must have a perfect effect, and adds: Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for having been tested, he will receive the crown of life ( James 1:2, 3, 4, 12 ).

About alms

Must be merciful to the poor and strange; the great luminaries and the Church Fathers took great care of this.

With regard to this virtue, we must try by all means to fulfill the following commandment of God: Therefore, be merciful, just as your Father is merciful ( Luke 6:36 ), also: I want mercy, and not sacrifice ( Matt. 9:13 ).

To these words of salvation the wise hear, but the foolish do not hear; Therefore the reward is not the same, as it is said: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; but he who sows generously will also reap bountifully ( 2 Corinthians 9:6 ).

Let the example of Peter the Khlebodar (Reading of Menaia, Sept. 22), who received forgiveness for all his sins for a piece of bread given to a beggar, as it was shown to him in a vision, should encourage us to be merciful to our neighbors: for even a small alms contribute much to style.

We have to do alms with spiritual affection, according to the teaching of St. Paul. Isaac the Syrian: “Whatever thou givest to him who demands, let him warn thy action of the gladness of thy countenance, and comfort his affliction with good words” (Homily 89).

Source:On the purpose of our Christian life. Conversation of St. Seraphim of Sarov with N.A. Motovilov. / Venerable Seraphim of Sarov; N.A. Motovyliv – Kyiv: Kyiv-Pechersk Dormition Lavra, 2013. – 79 p..