Your unworthy co-prayer.

Letter 8

11.2.1946

Most honorable in the Lord!

By God's mercy I am healthy, after lunch I go to saw firewood for 2 hours. Do not be frightened that you do not have reverence in prayer, it is good and salutary that you force yourself to pray; look into the Ladder: fol. 28 and ch.29.

Do not imagine God to be very strict. He is very merciful, He knows our human weakness, we must reverently honor the Holy Fathers, for they are God's special chosen ones, and in order not to be embarrassed that we cannot imitate them, look into the Flattery. 26, ch. 125. I also wish that the Lord would vouchsafe you to end your life in a monastery. Let us pray and hope that he will fulfill our desire, now live with N.N. Serve her according to the 5th commandment. For monastic life, save patience not just one cart, but a whole baggage train.

I don't like my illiterate letters; so I have written to you to destroy them, and if in your humility you want to keep them, let them remain with you. Write to me, do not be shy, I will always answer as far as the Lord enlightens me. Sometimes I am confused by the thought: "Why do I correspond, illiterate, with the educated?" Let's hope that we will see each other, God willing, then we will talk. The writings of the Holy Fathers are directed to three degrees of spiritual perfection: to infants, intermediate and perfect, and as you and I are infants, we need and benefit from soft food, so extract from there spiritual classes according to your age.

May the Lord make you wise, understand and do not be confused.

Letter 9

19.4.1946

So we entered the Holy Forty Days. St. The Church cries: "Let us fast with a pleasant fast, pleasing to the Lord; true fasting is the alienation of the wicked, the abstinence of the tongue, the deferral of wrath, the excommunication of lusts, the utterance of lies, and the transgression of perjury, of which there is impoverishment, the true fast is also acceptable."

On Forgiveness Sunday, after dinner, a break for 1/2 hour; At 7 o'clock all the monks gathered in the church, sang the Paschal canon, read prayers for the coming sleep, and then venerated the icons. The abbot asked forgiveness, made a prostration to the ground, and all the brethren also bowed down to the ground, and all came up in turn, kissing the ramen, one by one, and only one heard: "God will forgive me, and forgive me, a sinner," then they went silently to their cells.

A good custom, somehow responds well to the soul, everything has been reconciled. They do not work all this week, they will take communion on Saturday.

I congratulate you on the Holy Synod. The Forty Days; help you, Lord, to spend it in Christian piety and meet the Bright Resurrection of Christ.