“I thank You, Lord and my God, for everything that happened to me! I thank You for all the sorrows and temptations that You sent me, for the cleansing of those defiled by sins, for the healing of my souls and bodies ulcerated by sins! Have mercy and save those instruments that You used for my healing: those people who insulted me. Bless them in this and the next century! Credit to them as virtues what they did for me! Assign them abundant rewards from your eternal treasures. What did I bring to you? How pleasing sacrifices? I offered only sins, only violations of Your Divine commandments. Forgive me, Lord, forgive the guilty one before You and before people. Forgive the unrequited! Grant me confidence and sincerely confess that I am a sinner! Grant me repentance! Grant me contrition of heart! Grant me meekness and humility! Grant me love for my neighbors, immaculate love, the same for everyone, both those who console me and those who insult me! Grant me patience in all my sorrows! Die me to the world! Take away my sinful will from me and plant Your will in my heart holy, may I create her as one with my deeds, and words, and thoughts, and my feelings. To you, Lord, glory is due for everything! To you alone belongs the glory! My only asset is the shame of my face and the silence of my lips. Standing before Thy Last Judgment in my wretched prayer, I do not find in myself a single good deed, not a single dignity, and I stand, only enveloped from everywhere by the countless multitude of my sins, as if by a thick cloud and mist, with the only consolation of my soul: with hope in the unlimited Your mercy and grace. Amen".
I thank You, Lord and my God, for everything that has happened to me! I thank You for all the sorrows and temptations that You sent me to cleanse those defiled by sins, to heal those ulcerated by sins, my soul and body! Have mercy and save those instruments that You used to heal me: those people who insulted me. Bless them in this age and the next! Credit to them as virtue what they did for me! Assign them abundant rewards from Your eternal treasures. What did I bring to You? What are acceptable sacrifices? I brought only sins, only violations of Your Divine commandments. Forgive me, Lord, forgive the guilty one before You and before people! Forgive the unrequited! Grant me to be convinced and sincerely admit that I am a sinner! Grant me to reject crafty excuses! Grant me repentance! Grant me contrition of heart! Grant me meekness and humility! Grant love to my neighbors, immaculate love, the same to everyone, both those who console me and those who insult me! Grant me patience in all my sorrows! Die me to the world! Take away my sinful will from me, and plant Your holy will in my heart, so that I may do it alone in my deeds, words, thoughts, and feelings.
I thank You, Lord and my God, for everything that has happened to me! I thank You for all the sorrows and temptations that You sent me to cleanse those defiled by sins, to heal my soul and body, ulcerated by sins!
Have mercy and save those instruments that You used to heal me: those people who insulted me. Bless them in this age and the next! Credit to them as virtue what they did for me! Give them abundant rewards from Your eternal treasures.
What did I bring to You? What are acceptable sacrifices? I brought only sins, only violations of Your most Divine commandments. Forgive me, Lord, forgive the guilty one before You and before people! Forgive the unrequited! Grant me to be convinced and sincerely admit that I am a sinner! Grant me to reject crafty excuses! Grant me repentance! Grant me contrition of heart! Grant me meekness and humility! Grant love to my neighbors, immaculate love, the same to everyone, both those who console me and those who insult me! Grant me patience in all my sorrows! Die me to the world! Take away my sinful will from me and plant Your holy will in my heart; May I create it as one, both in deeds, and in words, and in my thoughts, and in my feelings. Glory is due to you for everything! To you alone belongs the glory! My only asset is the shame of my face and the silence of my lips. Standing before Thy terrible judgment in my wretched prayer, I do not find in myself a single good deed, not a single dignity, and I stand, only enveloped from everywhere by the countless multitude of my sins, as if by a thick cloud and darkness, with only one consolation in my soul: with hope in Your unlimited mercy and goodness. Amen.
Cemetery
After many years of absence, I visited the picturesque village in which I was born. It has belonged to our family for a long time. There is a majestic cemetery, overshadowed by centuries-old trees. Under the wide canopies of trees lie the ashes of those who planted them. I came to the cemetery. Mourning songs and consoling songs of sacred requiem were heard over the graves. The wind moved across the tops of the trees; their leaves rustled; this noise merged with the voices of the singing clergy.
I heard the names of the deceased - alive to my heart. The names were listed: my mother, brothers and sisters, my grandfathers and great-grandfathers who had passed away. What solitude in a cemetery! what a wonderful, sacred silence! so many memories! what a strange, long-term life! I listened to the inspired, Divine chants of the memorial service. At first I was overcome by a feeling of sadness; then it began to ease gradually. By the end of the memorial service, quiet consolation replaced deep sadness: church prayers dissolved the living memory of the dead with spiritual pleasure. They announced the resurrection awaiting the dead! they proclaimed their life, attracted bliss to this life.
The graves of my forefathers are surrounded by a circle of ancient trees. Widely spreading branches formed a canopy over the graves: a large family rests under the canopy. The ashes of many generations lie here. Earth, earth! Human generations are replaced on the surface of yours, like leaves on trees. These leaves turn sweetly green, comfortingly, innocently rustle, set in motion by the quiet breath of the spring wind. Autumn will come to them: they will turn yellow, fall from the trees onto the graves, and decay on them. When spring comes, other leaves will show off on the branches, and also only during their short succession, they will also fade and disappear.
What is our life? Almost the same as the life of a leaf on a tree!
In the twilight of a quiet summer evening I stood, thoughtful and lonely, at the grave of my friend. On that day he was commemorated; that day his family stayed at the grave for a long time. Almost no words were heard between those present: only sobs were heard. The sobs were interrupted by deep silence; the silence was interrupted by sobs. And for a long time the sobs were replaced by silence, the silence by sobs.
I stood, pensive and lonely, at the grave; stood overshadowed by the impressions of the day. Suddenly, an unexpected, wonderful inspiration took possession of me. It was as if I heard the voice of the deceased! - His funeral speech, the mysterious conversation, the wonderful sermon, as it was depicted in my soul, I hasten to write with a trembling hand.
“My father! my mother! my wife! my sisters! In black robes, clothed in deep sadness both in body and soul, you flocked to my lonely grave and surrounded it with drooping heads. Silently, with only thoughts and feelings, you talk with the silent inhabitant of the tomb. Your hearts are vials of incurable sadness. Streams of tears flow from your eyes; after the streams that have spilled, new streams of tears are born: there is no bottom to sadness, there is no end to tears.
My babies, my children! and you are here at the gravestone, at the tombstone! And tears welled up in your eyes, but your heart does not know what your eyes are crying about, imitating the eyes of my father, the eyes of my mother. You admire a gravestone, a luminous stone, a mirrored granite; you admire the inscription made of golden letters; and this granite and this inscription are the harbingers of your early orphanhood.
My father! my mother! my wife! my family and friends! Why do you stand for so long over my grave, over the cold stone, coldly standing guard over the grave? My lifeless body has long since cooled; by the verdict of the almighty Creator, it returns to its land and crumbles into dust. What heavy thoughts surround you, keep you at my grave?.. The servants of the altar brought her a prayer for my repose, proclaimed to me eternal memory in God, who saves and rests me. They departed from the grave silent: leave you too. You need peace after the exploits of your soul and body, exhausted and tormented by grief.
You are not coming!.. you are here!.. you are chained to the place of my burial! In a silence that says more than the most magnificent eloquence can say, with a soul for which there is no explanation, with a heart in which the definiteness of feelings is absorbed by the abundance of feelings, you do not retreat from the grave, imprinted for many centuries, from the stone - a monument to the insensitive . What do you need?.. Are you expecting my voice from under the stone, from the depths of the gloomy grave?
This voice is gone! I speak in silence. Silence, indestructible silence, is the property of the cemetery until the very trumpet of resurrection. The ashes of the dead speak without the sounds that the earthly word needs: with corruption accomplished, they proclaim a loud sermon, a most convincing exhortation to the restless seekers of corruption rustling on the earth’s surface.
And I still have a voice! And I speak to you and answer your inexpressible thoughts, your unspoken and inexpressible questions. Listen to me! Distinguish my voice from the general voice with which eternity speaks to time! - The voice of eternity is one, unchangeable, immutable. There is no inconstancy or changeability in it: there is one day in it, one heart, one thought. The one who unites everything together is Christ. There is only one voice from there.
In this voice with which eternity speaks, in this voice that is silent and at the same time like thunder, distinguish my voice! Don't you, my dear ones, recognize my voice? My voice in the general, single voice of eternity has its own separate sound, like the voice of a string in the general chord of a multi-string piano.
The voice of eternity spoke to all of us, from the time of our appearance into existence. He spoke to us when we were not yet able to listen to him; He spoke to us even in our adulthood, when we could and should have listened to him and understood him. The voice of eternity!.., alas!.., there are few who listen to you in a noisy earthly hotel! That is why our infancy prevents you from listening; then the cares and distractions of life prevent you from listening. But you don't stop talking. You talk and talk, and finally, through the formidable messenger, death demands both an attentive and an inattentive listener to report their attention and obedience to the great verbs of eternity.
So that the voice of eternity has a special echo for you, especially capable of penetrating into your heart, attracting our mind to the word of salvation, God has counted me among those speaking from eternity. My voice merged into harmonious harmony with the general voice of the vast invisible world. For all the wanderers of the earth, I am dead, voiceless, like all the dead, but for you I am alive and, dead, I speak the word of salvation more openly, stronger than I would say it, remaining among you and chasing with you the ghosts of blessings, with which corruption deceives and destroys exiles from paradise, who are placed for a short time in an earthly inn for reconciliation with God, who is angry with them.
God is merciful, infinitely merciful. If it were necessary and useful, suddenly from the darkness of the grave, from under a heavy stone, I would respond to you!.. Heaven recognized a private voice from eternity as unnecessary. And what voice from eternity is no longer superfluous, when God deigned that not only equally angelic men, but His Only Begotten Son Himself would proclaim His will to the universe, proclaim the holy and strict statutes of a blessed eternity for the obedient, terrible for the disobedient? They have Moses and the prophets: let them listen to them, the answer was Heaven to the one who asked for the voice of the dead to preach to those living on earth in a carnal life, mortified by spiritual eternal death. If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, and if someone rises from the dead, they do not have faith. .
My comrade is a dead man, but still with a living word in his mouth! Accept the order from me and fulfill it.
Here is my father! here is my mother! here is my wife! here are my relatives! I cannot speak to them except in the common voice of eternity. In this voice they hear the sound of my voice... yes, they hear it!.. but I don’t have a separate, private, my word... My comrade! be my word; from our common treasury, from sacred eternity, tell them for me a short, most necessary word for them: “Earthly life is an instantaneous deceptive dream. Eternity is inevitable. There is also a disastrous eternity!.. Acquire a blessed eternity by attention and obedience to the all-holy Law of the all-holy God - and come to me for sure, never-ending pleasure, each at his own time, appointed by God Himself and the One!”
1848, Sergiev Pustyn.
The Duma was written on the death of K. F. O-on, who from a young age had a close relationship with Archimandrite Ignatius Brianchaninov.
Teaching on the lamentation of St. Pimen the Great
The brother asked Abba Pimen what kind of work a monk should do. Abba answered: “When Abraham came to the Promised Land, he bought himself a coffin, and from the coffin he began to take possession of the Promised Land.” The brother asked: “What does it matter? coffin!“Abba answered: “This is a place of crying and sobbing.”
The following saying also belongs to Abba Pimen: “Crying is deep: it does and preserves.”
The brother asked Abba Pimen: “What should I do with my passions that outrage me?” The elder told him: “We will weep with all our might before the goodness of God until it shows mercy to us.”
The brother asked Abba Pimen: “What should I do with my sins?” The elder said: “Whoever wants to get rid of the sins living in him by crying gets rid of them, and whoever wants not to fall into sins again by crying avoids falling into them. This is the path of repentance, handed down to us by Scripture and the Fathers, who said: “Cry! there is no other way but crying.”
One day, Abba Pimen, passing through Egypt, saw a woman sitting on a coffin and crying bitterly. At the same time, he said: “If those who consoled her from all over the world had flocked to her, they would not have distracted her soul from crying. Likewise, a monk must constantly have crying within himself.”
One day the Monk Pimen was walking with Abba Anuv in the vicinity of the city of Diolka. Seeing a woman there, tormented and crying bitterly over the grave, they stopped to listen to her. Then, having walked away a little, they met a passerby, and Saint Pimen asked him: “What happened to this woman? She's crying so bitterly." The passer-by answered: “Her husband, son and brother died.” Then Abba Pimen, turning to Abba Anuv, said: “I tell you: if a person does not mortify all his carnal desires and does not acquire such crying, then he cannot be a monk. The whole life of a monk is a lament.”
The elder said: “Crying constitutes the teaching (spiritual work, spiritual feat) of the monk. If there is no crying, then it is impossible to keep from being upset and embarrassed.” I answered: “When I am in my cell, then crying remains with me; But if someone comes to me or I leave my cell, I no longer find it.” To this the elder said: “This is because crying is not assimilated to you, but is, as it were, given on loan.” I asked you to explain these words to me. The elder said: “If a person works hard to acquire crying, then he will find it to serve himself whenever he wants.”
The brother asked Abba Pimen: “To what should the attention of the silent person in the cell be directed?” The elder answered: “I am like a man mired in a swamp up to his neck, with a burden on his neck and crying out to God: Have mercy on me!” Have mercy on me! This is an expression of crying that has penetrated into the soul. Crying, when it reaches development, cannot be clothed in many thoughts and verbosity: it is content to express an immense spiritual feeling with the shortest prayer.
The brother asked Abba Pimen about monastic work. The elder said: “When God visits us with a call to eternity, then what will concern us?” The brother answered: “Our sins.” The elder said: “So! let us enter our cells; Having secluded ourselves in them, let us remember our sins, and the Lord will listen to us.” What we should mean here is not a superficial, cold memory of sins and one’s sinfulness, but a memory combined with repentance, with crying.
When Abba Arseny the Great died, Saint Pimen, at the news of the Great’s death, shed tears and said: “Blessed are you, Abba Arseny! because you cried for yourself in this life. He who does not cry here will cry forever. It’s impossible not to cry, either here - voluntarily, or involuntarily - there, in agony.”
About tears
Tears are natural to fallen human nature. Before the fall, it did not know tears; it knew only the purest pleasure of heavenly bliss. It has lost this bliss: tears are left to it, as an expression of sympathy for bliss, as evidence of a fall, as evidence of a state under the wrath of an angry Deity, as a hope to someday return bliss. This hope is true: because sympathy for bliss is not erased from nature. This hope is true: because the lament for the loss of heavenly bliss cannot be satisfied by any temporary satisfaction; it, remaining unsatisfied, expects satisfaction, proclaims the existence of satisfaction. Consolation lives mysteriously in tears, and joy in crying. A person, no matter what his earthly well-being, no matter what height he stands, no matter how abundantly he floats, meets and experiences moments, hours and days in which he needs the consolation delivered by tears, but does not find consolation in any other consolation. Each of us only enters the country of our exile and languor, the country of suffering and crying, as we mark this entry, the beginning of our existence, with a lamentable cry. Blessed is the man who has his intercession with You, marked by tears during his prayer! These are the invisible, spiritual put ascension in your heart, passing deplorable vale- earthly life, which You have appointed for repentance: for the one who gives the law will give blessing we cry and cry. Purifying ourselves with tears and tears will go from strength to strength, And The God of gods will appear in Zion - in the human spirit, prepared to accept God through true repentance. Those who sow with tears will reap with joy. Those, walking through earthly life, which hozhdahu along the narrow and regrettable path and weeping, throwing away their seeds: those who are coming will come with joy, taking up their hands .
Tears, as a property of fallen nature, are infected with the disease of the fall, like all other properties. Some people are especially prone to tears by nature and shed tears at every opportunity: such tears are called natural. There are also sinful tears. Sinful tears are tears shed for sinful reasons. Such tears are shed in abundance and with particular ease by people devoted to voluptuousness; Tears similar to the tears of voluptuous people are shed by those in self-delusion and delusion; Tears flow abundantly from vanity, hypocrisy, pretense, and man-pleasing. Finally, their anger sheds: when it is deprived of the opportunity to commit an atrocity, to shed human blood, then it sheds tears. These were the tears of Nero, in whom modern Christians, due to his cruelty and hatred of Christianity, thought to see the Antichrist. Natural tears include tears of grief; when grief has a sinful character, then the tears of grief become tears of sin. Both natural and sinful tears, immediately upon their appearance, are commanded by the Holy Fathers to change them to those pleasing to God, that is, to change the motivation of the tears: to bring to mind our sins, the inevitable and unknown death, the judgment of God, and to cry for these reasons.
Wonderful thing! Those who, by natural inclination, shed streams of effortless, meaningless and fruitless tears, as well as those who shed them for sinful motives, when they want to cry in a godly manner, suddenly see extraordinary dryness in themselves, and cannot get a single tear drop from their eyes. From this we learn that tears of fear of God and repentance are the gift of God, that in order to receive them we must take care, firstly, to acquire their cause.
The reason for tears is vision and consciousness of one's sinfulness. My eyes see the source of the waters, says the holy prophet David, Thou hast not yet kept Thy Law. The cause of tears is poverty of spirit: being itself bliss, it gives birth to another bliss - crying; nourishes, supports, strengthens it. “Weeping does not come from tears, but tears from crying,” said St. John the Prophet. - If someone, being in the midst of brotherhood, cuts off his own will and does not pay attention to the sins of others, then he becomes weeping. Through this his thoughts gather and, gathering in this way, give birth to sadness (crying) in the heart for God, and sadness gives birth to tears.” Tears, as a gift from God, serve as a sign of God's mercy. “Tears in prayer,” says Saint Isaac of Syria, are a sign of God’s mercy, which the soul has received through its repentance, and that it has been accepted and has begun to enter the field of purity through tears. If thoughts do not turn away from transitory objects, if they do not reject hopes for this world; if contempt for him is not aroused in them and they do not begin to prepare instructions for their outcome; If thoughts about objects belonging to the future age do not begin to act in the soul, then the eyes will not be able to produce tears.”
He who has acquired the sight of his sinfulness, who has acquired the fear of God, who has acquired the feeling of repentance and crying, needs to ask God for the gift of tears through diligent prayer. So Ashan, the daughter of Caleb, having been given in marriage and having received a plot of land as a dowry, when she sat on a donkey to go to her husband’s house, with groaning and crying she began to ask her father to add another plot abounding with water to the plot given to her. . You gave me to the southern (dry) land, and give me a watery exit. Caleb granted his daughter's wish. The Holy Fathers, by the face of Askhani, mean a soul sitting, as it were, on a donkey, on the dumb desires of the flesh. The dry earth depicts work under the guidance of the fear of God, and that Ashan began to ask for sources of water with groaning and crying, this signifies the extreme need for tears for every ascetic who must ask with sighs and heartache for the gift of tears from God. When praying for the gift of tears, one must also make one’s own effort to produce them. One’s own effort or labor can both precede the outpouring of tears and accompany this outpouring.
The work that precedes tears consists in prudent abstinence from food and drink, in prudent vigil, in non-covetousness, in diverting attention from everything around us, in concentrating it on ourselves. Saint John of the Climacus said in his Sermon on Lamentation: “Repentance is the voluntary deprivation of oneself of all bodily consolation.” Saint David describes the situation of the mourner this way: My heart was wounded like grass, as if it had forgotten to bear my bread. Because of the voice of my groaning my bone cleaves to my flesh. We became like the tawny owl of the desert, like a nightly crow on its dives(ruin). Bdekh, and bykh, like a special bird on here (roof). I eat ashes like bread, and dissolve my drink with tears. Without mortification for the world it is impossible to acquire weeping and tears: we acquire them as we mortify the world. - Work during the very crying and outpouring of tears consists of forcing oneself to them, in the generous patience of dryness and lack of rain, with which a blessed feat is sometimes cursed, after which the patient worker is always rewarded with an abundant outpouring of tears. Just as the earth, which has waited a long time for irrigation and finally received it in abundance, suddenly becomes covered with a tender, bright green, so the heart, exhausted by dryness and then revived by tears, emits from itself a multitude of spiritual thoughts and sensations, adorned with the general color of humility. The practice of crying, being inseparable from the practice of prayer, requires the same conditions for success that prayer also requires. She needs patient, constant abiding in her: she also needs crying. She needs the fatigue of the body, produces exhaustion of the body: she produces this exhaustion and crying, needing in order to be born, weariness and fatigue of the body. Weary with my sighing, says the great Maker of Lamentations, I will wash my bed every night, I will wet my bed with my tears. Self-motivation and labor must be proportionate to bodily strength. The Monk Nil of Sorsky advises and pacifies weeping and tears. “This is the path of repentance and its fruit,” he says. “Whoever cries about every misfortune that comes to him and against every enemy thought before the goodness of God so that it helps him, will soon find peace if he prays in spiritual mind.” However, this venerable one, having advised to be guided in doing those instructions that are in the books of St. John Climacus and St. Simeon the New Theologian, gives a warning, borrowing it from St. Isaac of Syria, so as not to lead a weak body into disorder by immeasurable compulsion. “Then,” he says, “it is useless to champion nature. When a weak body is forced to do things that exceed its strength, then darkness upon darkness is inflicted on the soul - it is thrown into confusion.” However, even with a weak physique and health, some coercion, commensurate with one’s strength, is necessary. This proportionality can easily be seen from a few experiments. The weak should bring themselves to weeping and tears with the most attentive prayer and try to acquire weeping in the spirit, and quiet tears flow, and heart disease is not so severe. Any spiritual activity, being actually a gift of God in us, certainly needs our compulsion to it: because compulsion is an active revelation and evidence of our good will. Compulsion is especially necessary when, out of fallen nature or through the villainy of demons, any sinful desire or indignation arises in us: then it is necessary to pronounce the lamentable words of the prayer somewhat out loud. Material, mechanical, vocal, especially forced and violent crying does not correspond to the weak, as it shakes the body and produces painful languor and pain in it. These languor and illnesses are likened by the Fathers to the illnesses of a woman giving birth; their consequence is significant exhaustion even in strong ascetics. For monks of strong constitution, a more intense compulsion to cry and tears is possible and useful; for them, it is necessary, especially at the beginning of their feat, before they acquire the cry of the spirit, to pronounce the words of prayer in a mournful voice, so that the soul, which has fallen asleep in the sleep of death from the intoxication of sin, is aroused by the voice of crying and itself feels the feeling of crying. Thus did mighty David weep. Roars from the sighing of my heart, he says about himself, roars like a lion filling the desert with a cry in which both the expression of strength and the expression of sorrow are terrible. For public prayer and crying, solitude is necessary, at least in a cell: this activity does not take place among the brethren. From the biographies of the holy Fathers it is clear that those of them who had the opportunity engaged in vocal crying, which was sometimes involuntarily heard beyond the walls of the cell, although they took care with all care that everything they did remained a secret, known to the one God. Just as the accumulation of gases in the air bursts into thunder during heavy rain, so the accumulation of the sensations of crying in the soul bursts into sobs with screams and copious tears. This happened to a monk, whose feat is described by Saint Isaac in his 10th Word. After thunder and rain, there is a special clearing of the air: and the soul, having relieved its sadness by sobbing, cooled by tears, tastes special silence and peace, from which, as if fragrant from aromatic substances, the purest prayer arises and acts. - In general, it is useful to learn from the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers different methods of monastic work, test them and choose for yourself the work that turns out to be most appropriate. Human beings are constructed in such a variety of ways, their abilities and qualities are so varied, that the same activity or method, when used by several ascetics, acts in each of them with significant differences. For this reason experience is necessary, as the Apostle advises: Everything is tempting, keep it good .
Gift crying And tears is one of the greatest gifts of God. He is a gift that we essentially need for our salvation. The gifts of prophecy, clairvoyance, and miracles are signs of special pleasing to God and God's favor, and the gift of tenderness and tears is a sign of accepted or accepted repentance. “Sadness of thought is an honest gift from God; he who has it and keeps it as he should is like a man who has a shrine within himself. Bodily feats without the sadness of thought are like a body without a soul.”
Tears shed for sins are at first bitter, shed during illness and languor of the spirit, which the spirit communicates to the body. Little by little, a consolation begins to be combined with tears, consisting of a special calmness, a feeling of meekness and humility; at the same time, the tears, in proportion and in accordance with the consolation provided, themselves change, lose much of their bitterness, flow out painlessly or with less illness. At first they are scarce and come rarely; then little by little they begin to come more often and become more plentiful. When the gift of tears is strengthened in us by God's mercy, then the internal struggle is tamed, thoughts subside, and mental prayer, or prayer of the spirit, begins to operate in a special development, saturating and delighting the inner man. Then the veil of passions is removed from the mind and the mysterious teaching of Christ is revealed to it. Then the tears turn from bitter to sweet. Then spiritual consolation vegetates in the heart, to which there is nothing like earthly joys and which is known only to those who practice prayerful crying and have the gift of tears. Then the promise of the Lord comes true: Blessed are the weeping: for they will be comforted. Then the ascetic greets himself according to the inspiration and confirmation of the Holy Spirit: God bless the little ones: humble yourself and save me. Turn, my soul, to your peace, for the Lord has been kind to you. As if my soul was taken from death, my eyes from tears, and my nose from crawling. Then the ascetic, seeing the powerlessness of sinful thoughts and sensations over himself, which are in vain trying to subjugate him to their influence, boldly says to them: Depart from me, you who practice iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my cry. The Lord heard my prayer, the Lord accepted my prayer .
Picturesquely depicted in Lamentations Holy Prophet Jeremiah, the spiritual state of a monk who has seen the fall of human nature, not deceived by the seductions of the transitory world, but who has completely fixed the gaze of his soul on this fall and has given himself over to deep weeping in deep solitude. And it will be Scripture says, When Israel was taken into captivity, and Jerusalem was devastated, Jeremiah the prophet sat weeping and wept over Jerusalem.. All benefits for Jerusalem have been exhausted, and all are already in vain: all that remains is mourning for her. The Prophet once spoke to him, spoke the prophetic word incessantly: now there is no one to hear this word; Not only are there no people, there are no buildings either; There are only ruins left: only sobs can be heard. No one understands these sobs, and there is no need to care that they are understandable to anyone. With them the Prophet expresses his inexpressibly grave grief; they are heard across the desert from the ruins; God listens to them from heaven. What a position the Prophet is! he is alone in the vast ruins of the city; he is the only one alive among countless dead signs and evidence of a past life; he alone is alive in the midst of death. As if alive, he gives a voice of grief over the loss of life; he calls on this life to return to the dwelling it left, to once again replace the terrible, unfeeling death. What a single city multiplied by people! Be like a widow, multiplied among the nations, rule the countries, become under Denmark. A prophet means the mind of a monk, enlightened by the Revealed teaching of God; the great city is all man created by God; city residents - properties of soul and body; pagans are demons who were humiliated before man before his fall and became his rulers after his fall. The monk himself and all people are in a state of decline: he and all people are the subject of his lament. But the monk cries alone, because he alone, in the light of the Word of God, sees the fall of humanity; other people do not see him, do not take part in the crying, do not understand the crying, and consider the crying person to have lost his mind. The monk cries alone on behalf of himself and on behalf of all humanity, not being able to separate himself from humanity out of love for him and because of his kinship with him; the monk cries for himself and for all humanity; he mourns the fallen nature common to all. He cries alone on the insensible ruins, among scattered stones and lying in heaps: ruins and stones are an image of humanity stricken by insensibility, humanity that does not feel or understand its fall and eternal death, and does not care at all about them. The monk cries alone, and his cry is understandable to the only God. Crying into the night- throughout earthly life, and his tears fell on his cheeks, and there was no comfort to him from all those who loved him: you who were friends with him, rejected him, and were enemies of him. In order to weep for God, one must withdraw from the world and people, die for the world and people, become lonely in heart and mind. “Leaving all worries will help you get closer to the city of silence; if you don’t account for yourself, you will inhabit him; “If you die for every person, then you will become the heir of the city and its treasures,” said the Great Barsanuphius to the monk, whom he was preparing for silence and hermitage in the tomb-cell, this beloved dwelling of prayerful lamentation. The Jews, who were in captivity and work with the Babylonians, represent arbitrary sorrows, that is, hardships and physical exploits to which a monk subjects himself for the purpose of repentance, as well as sorrows allowed to him by the Providence of God for the cleansing of sins. The spiritual leader of exploits - lamentation - sends a message to them from the ruins of Jerusalem, where he is silent alone. In the message he announces to the captives, after an urgent period of time, liberation. There is a time for bitter crying, and there is a measure for the cup of sorrows, voluntary and involuntary. These weights and measures are determined by God, as Saint David said: Feed us with the bread of tears, and give us tears in moderation, for You Thou hast laid my tears before Thee, as a means of cleansing in Your promise pardon and salvation. There were days when my tears were my bread day and night, they were followed by days in which, according to the preceding the multitude of my illnesses in my heart, Your consolations gladden my soul . Sometimes the captivity of Zion would be returned to the Lord as a source of consolation. Then our lips will be filled with joy, and our tongue will be filled with joy . Do not be afraid, my servant Jacob, the inspired Jeremiah proclaims on behalf of God to the chosen people, who were allowed captivity in Babylon for their sins, Do not be afraid of Israel: for I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity: and Jacob will return, and will rest and prosper.. The sorrows and illnesses of repentance contain within them the seed of consolation and healing. This sacrament is revealed by crying to his disciple. - All monks who were cleansed of sins were cleansed by crying, and all those who achieved Christian perfection achieved it by crying. This work was especially developed among the numerous silent people of lower Egypt, in the desert of Scete, in Mount Nitria, in cells and in other secluded places. It transformed the faces and regiments of monks into the faces and regiments of Angels. When the founder of monastic residence in the Skete desert, the Venerable Macarius the Great, whom other desert dwellers recognized as the Father of the Fathers, reached a very old age, the monks of Mount Nitria, very close to Skete, asked him to visit them before his departure to the Lord. Macarius came to the mountain; many monks, silent on it, met him. They asked him for edification. Macarius, tearing up, said: “Brothers! let's cry. Let our eyes shed tears until we depart to where our tears will burn our bodies.” Everyone cried, fell on their faces and said: “Father! pray for us." From his gift of tears, the holy mentor of the holy ancient monks pronounced a brief teaching on tears, combining in it all the teaching about monastic life. The listeners, by the manifestation of their gift of tears, expressed that they understood the meaning and vastness of the teaching. There was no need for many words here.
The gift of tears - this overshadowing of God's grace - most often visits ascetics during attentive prayer, being its usual fruit; to others it comes during reading; others during any work. Thus, the Monk Kirill of Beloezersky came to tears while studying in the monastery kitchen. Looking at the material fire, he remembered the unquenchable fire of eternal torment and shed tears. Kirill, believing that in silence his tenderness would intensify and his tears would multiply, wanted to retire to his cell. According to God, circumstances brought him what he wanted. So what? With the removal of the cause that aroused tenderness and tears, the tears became scarce, and Kirill asked the abbot to return him to the fire of the monastery kitchen. The Holy Fathers command to remain in the work in which tears come, because tears are fruit, and the goal of monastic life is to achieve fruit by the means by which it is pleasing to God to deliver fruit.
The Monk Theodore of Enata said that “he knew a monk who was silent in his cell and whose handicraft was weaving ropes. When this monk sat and wove a rope, engaged in mental prayer, tears came to him. Then he would get up to pray, but the tears would stop. The brother sat down and began to work on the rope, concentrating his thoughts, and the tears came again. Likewise, when he sat and read, tears came. He stood up to pray, and the tears immediately stopped. As soon as he started reading the book again, the tears returned.” Regarding this, the Reverend said: “The saying of the Holy Fathers is true that crying is a teacher. He teaches every person what is useful to him.”
The Monk Theodore of Enata used to say: “ Every sin, even if a man commits it, exists besides the body: but the fornicator sins in his own body., because filth flows from the body, desecrating it: so is every virtue, besides the body there is, and he who weeps daily cleanses the body: because the tear flowing from above washes the body from its impurities.” “A truly penitent person recognizes, according to St. John Climacus, every day on which he did not cry as lost for himself, even if during it he did something good. No matter how exalted our life may be, if we have not acquired a contrite heart, then this life is feigned and fruitless. It is appropriate, truly appropriate, for those who have become defiled after the bath of life (after Holy Baptism) to cleanse their hands with the constant fire of the heart and the mercy of God. We will not be accused, O friends, when our soul leaves the body, that we were not miracle workers, were not theologians, did not have spiritual visions; but we will certainly give God an answer for the fact that we did not cry incessantly,” that is, we did not remain in constant saving sorrow about our sins and sinfulness. Although crying is almost always crowned with more or less profuse tears, some ascetics - as can be seen from the consolation that the Holy Fathers pronounced for them - languish, either during their entire ascetic endeavor, or for a considerable time, under the yoke of crying, without receiving tears for joy and coolness. May they know that the essence of repentance lies in humility and contrition of our spirit, when the spirit will cry because of humility. Crying of the spirit, with a lack of bodily strength to express through bodily deeds and actions the repentance acting in the soul, replaces all bodily deeds and actions, and between them, tears. Amen.
God listens not to the one who sits or stands, but to the one whose mind is directed towards Him with due reverence. The desire for God, reverence for God and fear of God are acquired by attention to oneself.
St. Ignatiy Brianchaninov
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Prayer of the Persecuted
Compiled by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov
I thank You, Lord and my God, for everything that has happened to me! I thank You for all the sorrows and temptations that You sent me for the cleansing of those defiled by sins, for the healing of my soul and body, ulcerated by sins!
Have mercy and save those instruments that You used to heal me: those people who insulted me. Bless them in this age and the next! Credit to them as virtue what they did for me! Give them abundant rewards from your eternal treasures.
What did I bring to You? What are acceptable sacrifices? “I brought only sins, only violations of Your Divine commandments. Forgive me, Lord, forgive the guilty one before You and before people! Forgive the unrequited! Grant me to be convinced and sincerely admit that I am a sinner! Grant me to reject crafty excuses! Grant me repentance! Grant me contrition of heart! Grant me meekness and humility! Grant love to my neighbors, immaculate love, the same to everyone, both those who console me and those who insult me! Grant me patience in all my sorrows! Die me to the world! Take away my sinful will from me, and plant Your holy will in my heart; May I create it alone with my deeds, words, thoughts, and feelings.
Glory is due to you for everything! To you alone belongs the glory! My only asset is the shame of my face and the silence of my lips. Standing before Thy terrible judgment in my wretched prayer, I do not find in myself a single good deed, not a single dignity, and I stand, only enveloped from everywhere by the countless multitude of my sins, as if by a thick cloud and mist, with only one consolation in my soul: with hope in Your unlimited mercy and goodness. Amen.
The first volume of the works of Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) reveals to the reader the living experience of an ascetic who built his spiritual life on the basis of the Holy Scriptures and the moral Tradition of the Orthodox Church. The saint consistently sets out the teachings of the holy fathers: about faith, prayer, the Gospel commandments and beatitudes, repentance, humility, the fight against passions, etc., “applied to the demands of our time.” The word of edification of the great son of the Russian Church has a beneficial influence on all who seek salvation and strive for Christian perfection. Published by: Bishop Ignatius (Brianchaninov). Ascetic experiences // Works: 2nd ed. T. 1. St. Petersburg, 1886. Recommended for publication by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church
Prayer of the Persecuted
I thank You, Lord and my God, for everything that has happened to me! I thank You for all the sorrows and temptations that You sent me to cleanse those defiled by sins, to heal my soul and body, ulcerated by sins!
Have mercy and save those instruments that You used to heal me: those people who insulted me. Bless them in this and the Next Age! Credit to them as virtue what they did for me! Give them abundant rewards from your eternal treasures.
What did I bring to You? What are acceptable sacrifices? “I brought only sins, only violations of Your Divine commandments. Forgive me, Lord, forgive the guilty one before You and before people! Forgive the unrequited! Grant me to be convinced and sincerely admit that I am a sinner! Grant me to reject crafty excuses! Grant me repentance! Grant me contrition of heart! Grant me meekness and humility! Grant love to my neighbors, immaculate love, the same to everyone, both those who console me and those who insult me! Grant me patience in all my sorrows! Die me to the world! Take away my sinful will from me and plant Your holy will in my heart; May I create it alone with my deeds, words, thoughts, and feelings.
Glory is due to you for everything! Glory belongs to You alone! My only asset is the shame of my face and the silence of my lips. Standing before Your Last Judgment in my wretched prayer, I do not find in myself a single good deed, not a single dignity, and I stand, only enveloped from everywhere by the countless multitude of my sins, as if by a thick cloud and mist, with only one consolation in my soul: with hope in Your unlimited mercy and goodness. Amen.
