Always keep in mind those who endure the most grievous sorrows and bitterness, and you will endure your own, insignificant, small sorrows with thanksgiving and joy.

256. When a spiritual child's heart is calm, then the elder also rejoices

Be of good cheer and rejoice in the Lord!

First of all, I offer you my most earnest gratitude for your sincere love for me, unworthy, which may the Lord remember! Thank you both for your writings and for your sincere frankness! To all your letters, to all your questions and perplexities, I should answer you at length, but my strength is poor in me, and there is no healing in my flesh, and therefore I rarely write to anyone; wherefore I humbly ask your merciful forgiveness for my silence before you; however, I always remember your holy and dear one in my unworthy prayers before God, asking His blessing upon you! And when you are calm and joyful in the Lord, then I also have a feast in my soul; and when you frown and become sad, then even on a red day there is bad weather in my soul! . . . My heart was especially ached by the former temptation with you in the first week of Lent; I wondered whence such lofty reasoning, or more to put it bluntly, a pitiful lack of reasoning, was revived in you, i.e., to establish oneself in self-reflection, and to separate oneself from communion of the Holy Mysteries. Mysteries; where you should have humbly affirmed yourself on the word of your mother, as on the word of God, but you thoughtlessly said to her: You cannot console me and help me! Who will console and help you, if not Matushka, to whom you have been brought and entrusted by God Himself? How my heart ached for this! However, I am reassured by your present tranquility, and for your former restlessness I forgive you with all my heart and absolve you! At a personal meeting with you, I will give you what you need to acquire for your eternal peace and joyful sensation in your heart. Do not be grieved with me for the Lord's sake, because I have remembered what has happened; then there was sorrow, and now the universal joy is approaching us, i.e. the Radiant Resurrection of Christ, which God grant to attain in health, and to spend in joy in the Resurrected Lord; which your unworthy Abbess Anthony wishes you with all his heart.

March 23, 1849

257. One must always begin with one's own sins

You suffer in spirit from lack of humility, and I often ache in my belly from intemperance; But I think it's easier to be sick with the belly than with the spirit! In response to my illness, the cure is diet, i.e. abstinence; and on yours is the humility of Christ, and you will find rest for your restless soul. If you, my dear friend, had your heart nourished, like a kind of lip, with the humility of Christ, then you would have neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but constant comfort and consolation; for God Himself and His angels love the humble in heart, but men also revere them; but demons with temptation and do not dare to show their noses before the humble. Moreover, the humble themselves love everyone, and do not reproach them; You, my dear friend, in your temptation have taken a look at me, a great sinner, and your mother, and said: "Evidently they have ceased to pray to God for me!" However, forgive God for my sake, a great sinner, for having bitterly grieved you; and may God forgive you in everything, and may He rejoice you with the joy of salvation after the multitude of past sorrows and illnesses of the heart, which I wish you with all my heart. Unworthy Hegumen Anthony.

June 28, 1850

258. On Bitter Radish and Linden Honey

Your first writings, because of your murmuring about everything depicted in them, seemed to me instead of bitter radish; and therefore I did not thank you for such an unpleasant gift to my heart. But for this reason your second writings resembled to me, in taste and smell, the best linden honey, with which you delighted my soul and comforted me, for which the Lord God will save you! From this you can conclude how great is the good humility to have in the spirit and self-reproach, which calm both one's own soul and that of one's neighbor, and revive inner peace, and loving and respectful feeling. And therefore I most earnestly desire that the God of peace and love be with you all the days! I ask you to pray for me as well, so that the feeling of love does not diminish in me, your eternal worshiper and servant. The Many-Sinful Hegumen Anthony.

March 4, 1852

259. The cause of despondency is the desire to overcome sorrows by one's own efforts

Seeing from your letter that the Lord God has delivered you from faint-heartedness and from the overwhelm of many hostile temptations and suggestions, which have upset you almost to despair, from the depths of my soul I thanked the Lord God and His Most-Pure Mother, who delivered you from great misfortunes and evils, and established in your soul their sweetest peace! Before, not comprehending the real cause of your restlessness, I thought that you, like me, were hungry and dissatisfied with nothing, and therefore you were angry with everyone and everything; but, finally, I saw the reason that the spirit of despondency and cowardice attacked you, and you could not fight them with your own strength, and therefore you turned sour and fell. But, thank God, although it was too late, they rose up and corrected themselves, and calmed down in their spirits. And for the sake of the forefront, I advise you to read the instruction of the Holy Fathers: Nilus of Sorsky, and in the Philokalia of Cassian of Rome, and in Evagrius the articles on the eight thoughts, in which you will see how one should act in times of despondency and sorrow. For this is why the Holy Fathers have written everything to us, so that in the time of our spiritual need we may make use of their holy instruction.

After this, I will tell you about myself, that I, too, like you, now and then groan; but no one relieves me of the suffering that besets me, and therefore I say to myself: For your deeds you are a thief, for you still live as a layman, without humility and reverence! I returned to my monastery from yours safely, but after a long voyage, I still cannot recover in strength - all as if beaten. But in D... my sister could not have it, since we were late on the way, and the elder Father Macarius hastened to return home, which may have saddened your sister as well; but there is nothing to do, for now I do not live of my own free will, and I do what my elders say.