And now our common misfortune: egoism, or selfishness, pushes a person away from serving others. Love for another person sometimes cannot break through the asphalt of this demonic filth.

"All sacrifices and alms to the poor," writes John of Kronstadt, "will not replace love for one's neighbor if it is not in the heart; therefore, when giving alms, one must always take care that it is given with love, from a sincere heart, willingly, and not with vexation and grief at them. The very word alms shows that it should be a deed and a sacrifice of the heart, and given with tenderness or regret for the plight of the beggar." [Ibid., p. 243.]

We open various foundations, restore destroyed shrines, rant about love for the whole world and..! we push away the sick from us: "No, no! I don't do that, go to Fr. N."

Selfishness shackled hearts with fear. It is even better to forbid reprimands, prayers for the sick, then you can say to the troubled conscience: "Is it really forbidden, but I would be glad..."

13. Is it really possible that prayers for the sick with incantatory prayers will be prohibited?

Not only is it possible, but it is happening everywhere. Venerable archpriests oppose reprimands, declaring that now it is impossible to do this, and it was possible only earlier, when

They give different arguments in favor of their views. Bishops forbid so as not to have unnecessary worries and troubles. An opinion is developed: all this is the business of psychiatrists, and not ours, since no one understands this now, there are no those old men who died out like mammoths. The priest is assigned the role of a doctor's assistant: to calm and guide. And then they will sort it out and cure it.

14. And what about this terrible obscenity and rude criminal expressions that the sick say?

This is a purely demonic action through the sick, they often suffer from it unbearably, fall into melancholy and despondency, thinking that it is their thinness that gives the demons a reason to spew such things. It happens that even children say such obscenities that it is difficult to believe in it.

Here is a similar case from the book of Bishop Theodore. Basil:

"Once I was invited to give communion to a dying girl. When I arrived, the sick girl, a teenage girl of 12 or 13 years old, was apparently already in a state of last agony. Cadaveric shadows lay on his face, a faint squawk was heard in his throat, known among the people as "bells", as it is in the dying in the last minutes. But something extraordinary happened in her with him: terrible swear words escaped from her half-open lips every now and then. She scolded her mother, who was in the room, scolded her with the foulest, soldierly, street abuse. It was a terrible picture.

A girl, almost a child, is on the verge of death — and this disgusting abuse... The voice sounded sharp, like the knocking on a wooden board, the words flew out with short pauses, but methodically, with a kind of evil persistence. And at the same time, it was clear from her eyes that the poor girl hardly understood what was happening to her... It was as if someone was pulling a spring from inside and the words jumped out automatically...

It turned out to be impossible to give communion to the patient: she no longer had swallowing reflexes.

I only had to sprinkle it with holy water and read the incantatory prayers of St. Basil the Great and the funeral prayer. Little by little, it began to subside." [St. Basil of Kineshma, Discourse on Ev. of Mr., pp. 153-154.]