Having eaten heartily at home and soon being invited somewhere to eat again, do not dare to do this, and do not be deceived by food and drink, no matter how good they may be: this is a great sin before God; for this is also a corruption of nature: everything that is used by human nature in excess of necessity and measure is a warring sin and removes man from the fulfillment of the laws of the Almighty, for having transgressed the commandment of the Lord in small things, it is easy to transgress it in greater things (cf. Luke 16:10); especially untimely and immoderate consumption of food leads to this, for this reason the Saviour said to us: take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness and the sorrows of life, and that day will come upon you without dawn... (Luke 21:34.) Why does Vladyka visit the church without dawning? As a punishment for the frequent surrender to the pleasures of the womb, for the untimely and immoderate, and for the usual binding of oneself to the sorrows of life, to which the Lord did not foresee an end.

My Spirit shall not dwell in these men for ever, for they are not flesh (Gen. 6:3). The more a clergyman is, so to speak, according to his calling, the more he provokes the Holy Spirit to anger with his carnal way of life, and the more will he be required of him at the Judgment, for he should have shown others an example of how to be filled with the Spirit (cf. Eph. 5:18), and to lead a spiritual life, to be the light and salt of the earth (cf. Matt. 5:14, 13) — and he did not want to, and did not care to be spiritual. Thus, a priest who gives himself over to carnal pleasures is more guilty than a layman and will punish himself incomparably more severely than he. For gluttony and drunkenness, for love of money, covetousness and avarice, the priest will be punished all the more severely, the more he ought to be, by his very calling, abstinent, uncovetous and generous, placing his hope in God's Providence. For the love of money and avarice, the more severely he will be punished, the more his fortune was, the more the Lord showed him the experiences of His non-abandonment and generosity in the previous and current life; for the love of money and avarice, for gluttony and drunkenness, a clergyman will be punished without mercy, while a worldly person, subject to the same sins, will be punished more leniently: for the small, says the Lord, is worthy of mercy, but the strong will be tormented more strongly (Wis. 6:6).

If anyone speaks, especially if he prays for the fulfillment of any virtue or the entire Law of God, and does not care or try to fulfill this virtue or the Law of God, then he will be punished more severely than others, as a person who taught and did not do it himself: "A little teacher is not," it is said, "Be teachable, for we shall receive superfluous condemnation" (cf. James. 3, 1); who prayed and only idled and lied before the Lord in prayer: "From thy mouth, O wicked servant, I await thee" (cf. Luke 19:22), the Lord will say to him at the Judgment. "And so, it is necessary to speak, and even more so to do, to pray for the fulfillment of the commandments and to try to fulfill them by deed.

At the morning prayers we praise the Lord and say: Holy, Holy, Holy, God. [368] We glorify the holiness of God, among other things, to remind us that we also must be holy, for it is said: "Be ye holy, for I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 11:44).

Here I have a new, beautifully decorated apartment; here I have new good furniture: but what can I do in all this without my Christ, without His good will towards me; What do I have in this, if there is no Christian hope in my heart, if I am not filled with faith and love? Only the heaviness and distress of the heart, confusion and contrition of the spirit, as Solomon also experienced (cf. Ecclesiastes 1:14).

Therefore, my brethren, do not be captivated by anything perishable: all this is a phantom and smoke. Let your occupation be most of all in spiritual, heavenly, eternal things, which calm and elevate your soul, and lead you from corruption to incorruption (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:42), and above all, constantly remember the Lord Jesus Christ with faith and love.

The whole material world is nothing before God (Psalm 38:6); some spiritual beings as something like angels and men; only those creatures have a lasting existence, who are close to God, have His image and likeness; but the rest of the creatures pass away like a shadow — heaven and earth themselves shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away (Mark 13:31).

We must constantly remember that the devil constantly tries to pollute our soul with his hellish rubbish, of which he has too much and which is too small and varied. And so, whether your heart's eye is darkened by enmity, whether by pride, impatience and irritability, whether by pitying material possessions for your brother or for yourself – I mean avarice – by covetousness and love of money, by not the peace-loving and offensive words of others, by despondency and despair, by envy, doubt, lack of faith, or disbelief in revealed truths, by vanity, by laziness in prayer and in every good deed and in general by the work of service,  — say in your heart with firm confidence the words: "This is the dung of the devil, this is the darkness of hell, this is the stench of demons." "With faith and hope in the Lord, with constant sobriety and attention to oneself, one can, with God's help, avoid hellish rubbish and darkness. He who is born of God watches over himself, and the bow does not touch him (1 John 5:18).

The temptations and incitements of the enemy are necessary for Christians, for by them he awakens them from spiritual slumber and petrified insensibility [369] and by them, like thorns and sorrows [370] he forces them to constant spiritual sobriety and attention to themselves and to complete correction in life. This purpose of the enemy's temptations is also shown by the Apostle James, when he speaks of the enemy's temptations thus: "Have all joy, my beloved brethren, when ye fall into various temptations, knowing that the temptation of your faith worketh the work: but let patience be a perfect work, that ye may accomplish all your ends, lacking in nothing" (James 1:2-4).

In the sight of the Creator and Lord, all material worlds are as nothing: He created everything out of nothing, and He can transform everything into whatever He wants, even into that which we cannot even think of. "Therefore, for the Lord's commandment, for example, about love for God and neighbor, sacrifice all material things without pity. Why? For God is the Creator of all matter, and is infinitely higher than it, dearer than it, more dear than it; and the neighbor is the image of God the Creator, who himself creates many things through the action of the image of God in him through faith in the Lord, and in comparison with the neighbor every thing is insignificant. "The neighbor is immortal, and all material things pass away.

Sometimes I am frightened by the inner emptiness and poverty of my soul, the petrified insensibility of my heart, but suddenly a bright thought illumines me that my Lord is Most Good and Almighty, and He can comfortably and suddenly fill the most terrible emptiness of my soul, warm my cool heart with sympathy and love for God and neighbor — and my accursed soul is filled with hope and joy and says to itself: About! I have not yet perished under such a Lord, there is still hope for me to be reborn and corrected, and it becomes easy in my soul. About! How life-giving and sweet is Christian faith and hope! Therefore, my brethren, no matter how poor you may be in Christian love and good works, never lose heart and do not despair: your Lord is all-powerful and all-good, and from moral insignificance He can make you great in the Christian faith and virtuous life; of the children of the devil into the children of God (cf. John 1:12; Rom. 8:21); only turn your hearts with faith and love to the Lord, and say: I have sinned, Father, in heaven and before Thee, and Thy son is already worthy to be found: I am as one of Thy hired servants (cf. Luke 15:18-19). How many examples do we know of the conversion of our hearts from the most extreme corruption of our hearts to God (cf. Psalm 72:26) and of mercy by the Lord! They became great righteous men.

When praying, one must believe in the power of the words of the prayer in such a way as not to separate the words themselves from the very deed expressed by them — one must believe that after the word, like a shadow after the body, follows the deed, just as with the Lord word and deed are inseparable: for Him spoke, and it was: By Him He commanded, and He was created (Psalm 148:5). "And thou shalt also believe that what thou hast said in prayer, what thou hast asked for, shall come to pass: thou hast sung it, and God hath received the doxology, thou hast given thanks to the Lord, and God hath received thy thanksgiving in the stench of spiritual fragrance." — The misfortune is that we have little faith and separate the word from the deed, as the body from the soul, as the form from the content, as the shadow from the body — we are also at prayer, as in life, bodily, having no spirit (Jude 1:19): for this reason our prayers are powerless and fruitless. - July 28, 1861.

When we call upon the saints in prayer, then, having pronounced their name from the heart, it means to draw them closer to our very heart. Then, without a doubt, ask for their prayers and intercession for you: and they will hear you and present your prayer to the Lord — quickly, in an instant, as the Eternal and the Knower of all things. —The name of articulate sounds replaces, as it were, the flesh of a saint or a saint, and when at the proskomedia you commemorate the Lord Jesus Christ, or His Most-Pure Mother, and the saints, or the living and the dead, then the particle taken out represents and replaces, as it were, the body of the Lord or His Most-Pure Mother, or any saint, or the multiplicity of many saints, the flesh of the living or the dead commemorated, and what is thought in the name represents and replaces the soul of the being invoked or commemorated. Thus, in a small form, in our mouths and in our souls, the beings of the world above and below are reflected, as it were, and all this through faith by the Holy Spirit, Who is one (Exodus 3:14), Who is everywhere and fulfills all things [373].

When a stranger tells you that there are good rumors about you as a man of strict Christian life, reject such a rumor about yourself in the face of this person, and say to him, pointing to your household, "These people know better than anyone else what I am," ask them to speak impartially about me, and they will tell you what a passionate person I am. how every passion nestles in my heart, how it torments me, and how some are often discovered. Strangers see only the light, grace-filled side in me, but they do not see the dark, sinful, carnal side, and therefore they think falsely about me.