A person must wash his spirit, nourish him, warm him and illuminate him with Christ's truth. To put him in those conditions in which the spirit can grow stronger, develop, and grow into eternal life. There is hygiene of the body and there is hygiene of the spirit. The human spirit also needs sanctification, which comes from Christ, the Son of God, the incarnate true God.

It is possible to see in everyday human life how our spirit manifests itself through the flesh. Through a person's face (especially through his eyes) all the good and bright that is in him is clearly visible: the face of a good person shines like a mirror reflecting the inner world of God's truth. The face of an evil person is always prickly, unfriendly and even deadly for others. Isn't that so?... Let materialists who do not believe in the spiritual nature of man think about this.

We are all drawn to the spiritual light. Even non-believers, unconsciously for themselves, want to enter the higher life, to incarnate themselves in it, they strive for some kind of fullness of being, which is not here on earth. We see here only a glimpse of eternal existence in the midst of our weakness and mortality. But this reflection is the greatest treasure of the world, and wise is the man who is not tempted by the lure of the external, transient joys of the earth, but raises his gaze more and more to the undying values of true life...

It is easy for a true believer to leave the earth. His soul, free from attachments to the perishable values of the world and not boiling in passions, easily departs into eternity, into the fullness of bliss, the beginning of which it has already experienced in this world.

Let this bliss be associated with the Cross, with the struggle against one's own and the surrounding evil... Some understand the Cross as something burdensome, coming from outside. This is not true. The taking up of the Cross of Christ is the readiness and inspiration of the free will of man himself to fight for God's truth both in his soul and in the world. The cross is a free human consent to fight for love and truth in this world.

It is not easy for a person to fight for love, truth and purity on this earth. Everything seems to condemn, disrupt and weaken our impulse for good, both inside us and outside... But a believer carries this impulse through his whole life. This is his Cross. And he who refuses to bear the bright, saving Cross of Christ's truth, purity and love, is forced to bear the hopeless robber's cross of his passions, his evil deeds and their consequences. This is the cross of that left-wing thief who was crucified with Christ on Golgotha, but who did not repent before Christ, who did not realize his sinfulness and rejected Christ.

Man's life is not easy in this earthly, transitory world. He must be a part of his being in this world, honestly do his earthly work: for his loved ones, for his people, for humanity. But with the last depth of the spirit he must breathe the heavenly air of eternity. There, to this pure height of being, he goes after his earthly ordeal. A religious person can be called a person whose values are not only on earth, but also in heaven.

Such a person can be a surgeon like Pirogov, a writer like Dostoevsky, a scientist like Newton, and an explorer of the earth like Semyonov-Tien-Shansky, and everywhere on all paths of the world he will realize high humanity. Christ's truth.

In the midst of all the conditions of the earth, we can be preserved from evil and sin. This is the miracle of life in Christ. Christ does this in us according to our faith. It is not by our own power, but by God's power that we are saved...

"What is impossible for man is possible for God." And we believe and know that the Lord is not only near us, but He is also in us. And His love for us and our love for Him is the greatest power in the world.

About Paradise and the Cross

The cross is not only suffering, but also elevation above suffering. The cross of the thief, crucified on the left side of the Saviour, who grumbled at his torments and rejected the healing power of Christ's sufferings, can be called one suffering. But for the right thief, who meekly gave himself over to the power and truth of Christ's innocent sufferings, the cross became the beginning of paradise... "Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise," said the Saviour to the right thief hanging next to Him. This means after the exodus from this earthly life of suffering. But the believer began to come out of this life at the very moment of his belief. This great moment of suffering for him was already the beginning of his bliss. Paradise already... touched his heart.

Those who know what suffering for faith, for love, truth and purity is, understand that their paradise on earth is in the Cross. Their suffering is not a state, but a path to real life, its fullness, purity and bliss. Suffering is not a home where one should live, but the road to a real Home, where all the fullness and joy of life are. There is no such fullness in anything on earth! The earthly world is a road, not a dwelling. Humanity will not find paradise in this world without the Cross. What false materialistic human teachers dream of is impossible. Man will never build himself a joyful Home in a world where sin, sickness, and death reign. Man will always be homeless in this world. And this is a blessing. His suffering is short, but his joy can be eternal. And no person will fully embody the ideal of his Homeland on this earth, because the highest and eternal Homeland of each person is the world of Christ's truth.

The Cross is the power of God and the authority given to man on the path to God. The cross in this world is, of course, suffering, because it is death to sin and death to death, and man has united himself with sin. Breaking away from sin, he suffers, but this is the suffering of liberation. A mother suffers when she gives birth to life, and the human spirit suffers when she gives birth to eternal life...