«...Иисус Наставник, помилуй нас!»
Heartfelt Meditation on Sufferings to Christ
Christ. For this it is good to choose one of the sufferings of Christ every day, to meditate on it in detail, and to remember it more often during the day. From this we will always get
the spirit of patience, meekness, daily voluntary mortification, and grateful, completely
devoted love for Christ. "How do you spend
time?" the aliens asked one, almost not
who knew how to read the hermit. The hermit said:
"Our Saviour has endowed me with sight, and I have always
I'm watching." — "For what?" — "For the Passion of Christ.
They are always in front of my eyes. In them I find
everything I need, and nothing sticks so much
me with love for my Lord Jesus Christ, as the sight He has given me"2.
All of us, without exception, can imitate this hermit!
1 Jerom. Vladimir (Musatov). The Elder's Answers to the Questions of the Cell Disciple. Moscow: Podvorie Svyato-Troitskoy
Sergius Lavra. 2002.
2 St. Boniface of Feofania // Old Age Councils of Some Domestic Ascetics of Piety
18–19 centuries. Moscow, 1913.
How can we protect the soul from addiction to perishable things?
Meditate reverently and gratefully
about the greatness of one's soul granted by grace and
its multiplicity in the eyes of God. Imagine, as in a picture, the vastness of the earth, and examine impartially the objects that fill it:
how insignificant they will seem to you in comparison
with the dignity of the human soul, raised
By God's love for mankind, in a sacred secret way – to a degree of perfection similar to the life of an Angel. From this you will see that every thing
extremely invaluable before the lofty nobility of the Christian soul. For what profit is it to man, says our Lord, if he gains the whole world, and forsakes his own soul? (Matt. 16:26). If
And this is so, then consider: the incomparably worse is unworthy to be loved before the most precious
and incomparably better, i.e., perishable matter
before the imperishable and immortal soul.
Therefore, proper love for one's soul requires zealous care for gifts and benefits