Letter 1

Most Venerable 1 in the Lord E. Vna!

Commendable is your intention to desire salvation and to seek guidance to this, as our holy fathers teach us, who have tempted the spiritual life in practice. You entrust this duty to me. But as laudable as your wish is, so difficult is it for me to carry it out. Not having the qualities for such a work and not seeing in myself the fruits of the spirit, what can I teach others? This very often convicts me, and, being within the bounds of my foolishness, makes me see my insignificance. The words of our Saviour: "Physician, heal thyself" (Luke 4:23), and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the pit (Matt. 15:14) frighten me not a little. My habit of entering into superfluous conversations and judgments, perhaps often incorrect, but not understood by many, gives rise to thinking about me what I do not have, and to seek through me spiritual benefit. Even though I have to deny this, being so weak in my character, I cannot refuse even if I feel my foolishness, I enter into their position, I offer them from the word of God and from the teaching of the Holy Fathers; and when someone receives spiritual benefit, this happens by the action of the grace of God, not according to my worth, but according to their faith, which is given to them.

This I have written to you, although to show my insignificance, however, in a very small form, and the reason why some think something of me, and so that you may know that I can do nothing by myself.

Your request, verbal and written, convinces me to seek not my own, but that of my neighbor; and, forgetting my frailty, because of the weakness of my character, I dare not refuse your request; I do not trust in my own understanding, but in God, who admonishes even the dumb for the benefit of my rational creation, and redeemed by the blood of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who, according to your faith, through the prayers of my spiritual father, is able to enlighten the blind, to show the path, or to warn against the rapids that are found on this path; I only ask you, and add your prayers to help in this lofty and important undertaking. In the poverty of my understanding, do not seek eloquence; and if I write or say anything, not from my deeds or from my mind, but from the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers' teachings, what the Lord will give to my darkened mind for your benefit, proposing, in the words of St. John of the Ladder, "that some, having walked the path and found themselves in the mud, warn others, so that they may be afraid and not be soiled with the same mud and dirt; that through this deliverance they also may receive forgiveness of their sins" (v. 26, ch. 14).

I cannot systematically expound to you the teachings of the Holy Fathers; but as it happens, seeing your spiritual disposition, I admonish God, according to your faith: for without Him we can do nothing" (John 15:5), and having called upon His help, I answer you: having read your Scriptures, I see that after the error of your ardent youth and ignorance, I preserve you to God, having grown weary of the slavery of the passions, they came to their senses and began to seek comfort in God, they ran to Him, asked and sought with faith, but He, according to His true promise: "Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find: pound, and it shall be opened unto you" (Matt. 7:7), He did not despise your supplication, He turned all these phantoms and shadows into nothing, and showed you the vanity and insignificance of our desires, in which we believe to find the height of bliss, being intoxicated with passion. How pitiful are the people, most of whom are carried away by the stormy waves of the passionate sea, and rush about guided by their own minds, but not finding the truth. The great agitation and distress of the sinking compel them to cry out: Lord, save us, we are perishing! In this way they receive salvation. Sorrows, sorrows and illnesses separate peace-lovers from the pleasure and love of the world and make them servants of God and true Christians. You have experienced this yourself, after enduring temptation: now you see yourself free and completely independent of anyone except God; should you not silently thank God, for such His providence, that He, though by sorrowful adventures, has delivered you from the vanity of vanities? And do not cling to vanity. If you were to be married, would you not expect more sorrows than those who have passed? They have passed, and you are now free; otherwise they would only begin, there would be no end to them. You can see this in many parties, in many respects: in painful disagreement, in the bad morals of the other half, the troubles of educating children, their bad morals or unhappy fate, disputes, lawsuits about estates, imitation of the world in fashion and in the way of life; and it is impossible to enumerate all that could happen to you, leading you away from the fulfillment of God's commandments; but the most merciful Lord has set you free from all this, having foreseen something better about you. What then shall we repay the Lord for this, which I have repaid? I will receive the cup of salvation, and I will call on the Name of the Lord (Psalm 115:4)! There are many people in the world who are attached to it and bear its duties; let them go their own way, and they are under the providence of God; we are silent about them; but I speak of you, seeing the providence of God, which is destined for you another way.

Turning to God, you wanted to enter a monastery, but you were advised against it, and therefore it is evident that it had not yet happened, and your entry at that time could not have been lasting and useful for you. You, having withdrawn from the pleasures and vanities of the world, did not abandon the intention to enter a monastery, and the true desire to please God does not change in you, for which your prayer is always offered to God. You were calm, but on the uncertain foundation of your spiritual disposition, your tranquility was shaken by arrogance. The salvific thought – to leave the world and enter a monastery for the sake of pleasing God and salvation – flashed in you, illumined your heart and disappeared, being extinguished by arrogance; have you imagined, What will you bring to God? You do all this not out of love for Him, but without finding happiness in the world. To this I tell you: self-love and arrogance did not allow me to cry out to the Lord with the humility of a publican, or, in the likeness of a harlot, to fall at the feet of the Savior; but, with their own righteousness, they advised you to come to Him, following the example of the Pharisee. But what is humbler is firmer and firmer; and love itself is firmly united with humility, which God looks upon. Love is proved by the fulfillment of God's commandments with humility, which is contained in the number of them. Who had more love for God than the saints? But they all thought themselves to be nothing and worse than all, always seeing their own shortcomings; and the closer they came to God, the less they thought of themselves. Many of them began out of fear, came to hope and reached love. The Lord calls people to Himself by various means: misfortunes, misfortunes, sorrows, illnesses, and so on, without which they could not be converted and be worthy – accepted to be among the children of the heavenly Father. The prodigal son, having experienced the deprivation of wealth, feeling sorrow, came to the Father, asked to be received as one from the hireling: he did not do this out of love, but was received by the Father with love (Luke 15). The fig tree, which does not bear fruit, has formed an impenitent sinner, and the command has already been given to visit it, to exercise it and the earth; but the gardener begged the master to wait another summer, until he sprinkled pus (dung), perhaps he would bear fruit (Luke 13:6-9). This means a visit by sorrows, or illnesses, through which the sinner turns to God. St. Ephraim the Syrian presented in the parable "slaves sent from their master to work in the fields; but they, out of laziness, did not want to cross the river, but lay down and slept carelessly; The lord, having come to them and seeing them without action, ordered his servants to carry them sleepily to the other side of the river and lay each one in his own lot; some, waking up and seeing themselves transported, knew the condescension of their master and set to work; and others, careless, even with such condescension, did not want to fulfill the will of their master." St. John of the Ladder writes that some came to the hospital not for healing, but, being restrained by the tenderness of the physician, they came to know that they had an illness in their eyes and received healing from it (Step. 1:18). Again: the seed, which accidentally fell to the ground, bore abundant fruit. These examples can convince you that God accepts all who come to Him in any way, only with good intentions, and who place the hope of salvation not on their own righteousness, but on God's mercy. Although from the history of the lives of the Holy Fathers we see that some, inflamed by the love of God, left the world and, having departed, performed great feats, we also see that robbers, fornicators and other sinners were not rejected by God and received salvation. You are frightened by the monastic life: that for non-observance of podvigs you will receive a greater punishment. Podvigs should be commensurate with the strength of each one: God does not demand beyond measure, but seeks the fulfillment of His commandments, which heal our passions; and most of all it seeks from us humility, which, in addition to works, forgives many sins; but on the contrary, deeds without humility do not bring any benefit, writes St. Isaac the Syrian (p. 46). St. Mark the Ascetic writes in chapter 109: "Of deeds, and words, and thoughts, the righteous man is one; but from faith, and grace, and repentance, many righteous women." Therefore, we should not fear this (powerlessness), but trust in God and in His help.

The monastic life seemed to you to be as vain as the worldly, and therefore you found solitude alone a sure way to conquer the passions and please God. Now, although you live quietly in your possessions, you are in double-mindedness, not understanding whether you are on the right path, and fear takes possession of you, lest your soul perish, and because of this your spirit is troubled. To this I answer you: your solitary life cannot benefit you, but is even dangerous from the inaction of God's commandments and the hidden passions that lie within, which we learn from contact with like-minded people; and having come to know them, we try, with God's help, to eradicate by struggle, about which you have been told enough verbally, and ourselves, reading the books of the Holy Fathers, you see the futility of solitude and the benefits of conversion; of this I dwell no more. I am not forcing you to go to a monastery, but I am leaving it to your feelings, and even more so to the calling of God. As for your fear of suffering asceticism; then it is the custom of the enemy to frighten the soldiers of Christ even before entering into battle. And there is also his intrigue: he tries to deceive him with temporal blessings, he is ready to present the whole world to him, if only to lead him away from the work of the Lord. He dared even to the Saviour Himself to present all the kingdoms of this world, in the hour of time, demanding that he worship for this; but thou hast been ashamed, accursed (Matt. 4:8,9,10)! And you despise his wiles, but surrender to the will of God and do not resist God's calling. You have only external fetters, you can always throw them off. The vanity of the monastery is much different from the worldly: there it is out of necessity, and in the world it is for whim and luxury.

You have mentioned in your writings that God no longer requires of man the duties of the calling in which he was born, which, according to your understanding, you try to fulfill without reproach of conscience. As this point is not unimportant, it is necessary to judge it more clearly. This duty consists in the fulfillment of God's commandments, according to the vow given by us in baptism, in whatever rank one may be; but in the fulfillment of these we are faced with resistance from the enemy of the human race – the devil, about which the holy Apostles write; St. Peter: Your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour. Resist Him in the firmament of faith (1 Peter 5:8,9), St. Paul: "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, and against powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12). You see what an invisible war we have: it always tries to fight the Christian race by actions contrary to the commandments of God, through our passions; For this purpose his main weapons are the passions: love of glory, love of pleasure and love of money. Having been conquered by these, or by one of them, and by other passions, we give free access to action in our hearts. From your understanding it is evident that you do not have a perfect understanding of this battle or resistance, nor so much caution; but only your effort, without reproach of conscience, to fulfill your duty; but even this was not penetrated, as it should be, in which it consists. If you were to fulfill all your duty without reproach of conscience, or rather, without humility, then there is no benefit. Our adversary has two means by which he leads people to the wrath of God: first, to plunge them into vice; and the second, when he does not have time to do this, then into pride, that is, into the opinion of ourselves that we are doing the will of God, and approaches this very subtly – it does not suddenly blind us with pride, "but convinces them to impute that they are doing virtue, and throws into their hearts the seed of joyful opinion; and from him the inner Pharisee is brought up, who, multiplying and increasing day by day, gives them over to complete pride and delusion, for which he is allowed by God to be given over to the power of Satan." This is the discourse of a certain divinely inspired man and great elder of Moldavia (see the Life of Paisius the Great, p.134). St. John of the Ladder also writes: "That sometimes all vices depart from a person, leaving only one – pride, which is able to replace and complete the rest" (Step. 23:5). In such a battle or spiritual war, weapons are indispensable, against which the enemy's force cannot stand. What kind of weapon is it? – Holy humility. How to achieve it? There are different ways to acquire it.

First: the fulfillment of God's commandments, among which is this: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 5:3). When ye have done all that is commanded unto you, say, as slaves unto you: As thou shalt do, thou shalt do, thou shalt do (Luke 17:10); and learn from me, that I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest for your souls (Matt. 11:29).

Second: knowledge of one's own infirmities. St. Isaac the Syrian writes in his 61st homily: "Blessed is the man who knows his weakness, for this knowledge is his foundation, and the root, and the beginning of all goodness. However, no one can feel his weakness, unless he is allowed to be a little tempted to be tired, tiring the body or soul. And the righteous man, knowing not his own weakness, have things on the edge of the razor (he is in danger), and in no way have departed from the fall, lower from the pernicious lion, but I speak the demon of pride." And the words: "Do not know your weakness, you are poor because of humility; but he who is poor because of this is also poor from perfection; and he who is impoverished by this is ever afraid." In the 58th homily: "If by some case of sin creep in, there are manifest natural infirmities, but for the sake of benefit God has allowed the soul to receive the existence of passions, for it is seen that it is not higher than that it should be established before the second resurrection. If one accepts these passions (that is, to be overcome by passions), it is useful to have one's conscience in mind; and if you dwell in these (passions) without a cold and shameless."

Third: the memory of our former sins crushes the heart and humbles the soul.