However, when you confess that you feel like this, beware of allowing yourself to think carelessly and indulgently, that since you are like this, you have the right to do something unseemly. No, despite the fact that you are weak and weak, everything that is unseemly done by you is imputed to you. For everything that comes from you, by the will of the gifted, belongs to your will, and as good things are for your approval, so is evil for your disgrace. Therefore, having realized that you are bad in general, realize at the same time that you are guilty of the evil into which you have fallen in the present hour. Condemn yourself and reproach yourself, and moreover yourself alone, do not look around, looking for someone to shift your guilt on. Neither the people around you, nor the confluence of circumstances are to blame for your sin. Only your evil will is to blame. Reproach yourself.

However, do not be like those who say: "Yes, I did it, and what is the matter?" No, after realizing and reproaching yourself, having placed yourself before the unwashed truth of God, hasten to stir up repentant feelings, contrition and pain for sin, not so much because of the humiliation of yourself by sin, as because of its insult to God, Who has shown you so many mercies personally: in calling you to repentance, in the remission of former sins, in being admitted to the grace of the Sacraments, in keeping you on the good path and guiding you along it.

The deeper the crushing, the better. But no matter how great the contrition may be, and do not allow a shadow to despair of mercy. The pardon is already quite ready, and the handwriting of all sins is torn on the cross. Only the repentance and contrition of each one is expected, in order to assign to him the power of the Cross to atone for the sins of the whole world. With this hope, fall down on your face in soul and body and cry out: have mercy on me, O God, according to the commands of Your mercy – and do not cease to cry out until you feel yourself guilty and merciful, so that guilt and mercy merge into one feeling.

This grace finally descends upon everyone who repents. But he must be accompanied by a determination, sealed by a vow, not to indulge himself later, but to strictly observe and protect himself from any falls, not only great, but also small, with the addition of fervent prayer for grace-filled help for this. After such a close experience of the unreliability of one's strength and efforts, sighs will come of their own accord from the heart: "Create a pure heart in me, O God, and renew the spirit of righteousness in my womb." And may Thy good Spirit guide me to the land of righteousness.

All this – self-condemnation, contrition, a hopeful prayer for mercy, an inspiring decision to guard henceforth and a prayer for grace-filled help – must pass within you every time you sin with your eye, hearing, tongue, thought, feeling; and for a moment do not leave sin in your heart unconfessed to the Lord and not cleansed before Him by heartfelt repentance. If you fall again, do the same thing again, and even if you have to sin many times, cleanse yourself before the Lord as many times. In the evening, if possible, tell everything to your spiritual father, and if you can't tell it that same evening, tell it on occasion. Such a confession or revelation of everything to a spiritual father is the most beneficial action in the matter of our spiritual warfare.

Nothing strikes the murderous enemy so much and destroys his snares as such a way of acting. That is why he strives in every way to hinder it both internally and externally: inwardly, with thoughts and feelings, and externally, with the suggestion of various encounters and accidents. What exactly these obstacles are, you will see for yourself when you get down to business. I will only mention one thing: the enemy strives not to suggest a sin immediately as soon as a sin is noticed, but to begin the work of cleansing himself of it, but to wait a little, not a day or an hour, but a little. But only if you agree to this, he will substitute another sin, after the sin with the tongue, the sin with the eye and with some other feeling, and this sin can be involuntarily postponed, because it is necessary first to cleanse the previous one. And in this way there will be a postponement for a whole day, and sin after sin will fill the soul. In the evening, until which the work of repentant self-purification is usually postponed, nothing is seen in the soul – there is noise and confusion, and darkness from the multitude of falls. The soul is like eyes full of dust, or like water clouded by the multitude of rubbish that has invaded it. As nothing is seen, the work of repentance is completely abandoned, but at the same time the soul is left clouded and confused. Because of this, the evening prayer is out of order, and then the dreams are not good. Thus, never for a single moment postpone the inner purification, as soon as you realize what is defective behind you.

The second thing that the enemy inspires in this is not to tell the spiritual father what has happened. Do not listen, and in spite of it, reveal everything, for as much good as there is from this revelation, so is the evil, or even greater, from hiding what happens in us and with us.

What order does the devil keep in the conduct of battle?

spiritual with everyone and how it seduces people

Know that the devil cares about nothing else but the destruction of each of us, and that he does not wage war with everyone in the same way. In order for you to see and understand this more clearly, I will present to you five moral states of people and describe the intrigues, detours and deceptions of the enemy corresponding to them. These states are as follows: some remain in slavery to sin, and have no thought of liberation from it; others, although they think about this liberation and desire it, do nothing to achieve it; there are also those who, after being freed from the bonds of sin and acquiring virtues, fall back into sin with great moral corruption. Of the latter, some in self-deception think that, in spite of this, they are still moving towards perfection, others in carelessness abandon the path of virtue; others turn the very virtue that they have into a pretext and cause of evil for themselves.

The enemy acts on each of them, taking into account his mood.

When the devil holds someone in bondage to sin, he is primarily concerned with darkening him more and more with spiritual blindness, driving away from him every good thought that can bring him to the realization of the destructiveness of his life. And not only does he drive away from him good thoughts that could move him to repentance and turn him to the path of virtue, but instead of them he puts in evil and depraved thoughts, and immediately adjusts the improvised pretexts for his usual sin and draws him often into it or into other, more grievous sins. Because of this, the poor sinner becomes more and more darkened and blinded. This blindness takes root in him the habit and unceasing urge to sin and sin, so that he, unfortunate, drawn from the work of sin to greater blindness and from blindness to great sins, whirls as in a whirlpool, and will circle around like this all his life until death, if God's special grace does not bring him to salvation.

Whoever is in such a miserable state, if he wishes to be delivered from it, must not hesitate, as soon as a good thought comes to him, or, rather, a suggestion, calling him from darkness to light and from sin to virtue, to immediately receive it with all attention and desire, and immediately diligently set to work, calling from the depths of his heart to the generous Giver of all good: "Help me, O Lord my God, help me quickly, and leave me no longer in this darkness of sin." Let him not be weary, calling out with this or that word; but at the same time, let him seek earthly help, turning to those who know the matter for advice and guidance, how to free himself more successfully from the hostile bonds of sinful slavery that torment him. If this cannot be done immediately, let him do it as soon as the opportunity arises, without ceasing to resort to the Lord Jesus, Who was crucified for us, and to His Most-Pure Mother, the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, to have mercy on him and not to deprive him of prompt and appropriate help. Let him know that in this urgency of the matter and the prompt readiness to follow the good suggestion is his victory and the overcoming of the enemy.

As the enemy keeps in his nets those who