• archim.

Acquisition– acquisition, accumulation.

God revealed to us through the monk that the purpose Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Just as the people of this world strive to acquire earthly riches, a true Christian strives to acquire the Holy Spirit. Each Christian individually, under the guidance of his “spiritual father,” follows one way or another of serving God and acquiring Grace. But one path common to all Christians is prayer, repentance, communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and works of mercy.

The acquisition of grace is living. It is the infusion of God into man - “the final goal of the search for the human spirit” (prp.).

“Blessed is the one who, instead of all acquisitions, has acquired Christ, and who has one acquisition - the cross, which he carries high” (St.).

What does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit?

The acquisition of the Holy Spirit means the acquisition of God. This is one of the goals of Christian work, Christian life.

According to its closest semantic meaning, the term “acquisition” implies: “acquisition”, “accumulation”.

Despite what has been said, the content of the expression “acquiring grace” cannot be interpreted in the sense that Divine grace can be accumulated, stored and stored in one’s heart in the same way as a money-grubber does, filling a jar with gold and silver.

In addition, the grace of God resting on a person does not become his property in the same way as the material values ​​accumulated by the acquisitive become property. Material assets a person can use it as he pleases. Grace assists a person only when his efforts are aimed at.

The acquisition of the Holy Spirit means the grace-filled unity of man and God. How is it actually done?

As a person grows, the degree of his unity with the Almighty increases. The naming of this process as acquisition is due to the fact that, firstly, the growth of a person in the religious and moral aspect, as well as the accumulation by the acquisitive material wealth, is carried out gradually. Secondly, the gifts of grace taught to a person are often likened (allegorically) to material treasures (gold, pearls ()).

As a person ascends spiritually along the ladder of virtues, his ability to perceive grace increases; the degree of his grace-filled unity with God increases. And, on the other hand, than closer person to God, the more effectively his efforts aimed at further acquiring the Holy Spirit are realized.

Acquiring the Holy Spirit- teaching of St. Seraphim of Sarov about main goal Christian life, as outlined by him in a conversation with N. A. Motovilov:

“Prayer, fasting, vigil and all other Christian deeds, no matter how good they are in themselves, however, the goal of our Christian life is not in doing them alone, although they serve as necessary means for achieving it. The true goal of our Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God... Good done for Christ’s sake not only intercedes for the crown of righteousness in the life of the next century, but also in this life fills a person with the grace of the Holy Spirit...”

“What about acquisition? - I asked Father Seraphim. - I do not understand something".

“Acquisition is the same as acquisition,” he answered me. - After all, you understand what acquiring money means. So it is the same with the acquisition of the Spirit of God. After all, you, your love of God, understand what acquisition is in the worldly sense? The purpose of the worldly life of ordinary people is to acquire money, receive honors, distinctions and other awards. The acquisition of the Spirit of God is also capital, but only grace-filled and eternal, and it, like money, official and temporary, is acquired in almost the same ways, very similar to each other. God the Word, our Lord the God-man Jesus Christ likens our life to a marketplace and calls the work of our life on earth a purchase... Earthly goods are virtues done for Christ’s sake, giving us the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, without which there is and cannot be salvation for anyone. The Holy Spirit Himself dwells in our souls, and this very dwelling in our souls of Him, the Almighty, and the coexistence with our spirit of His Triple Unity, is granted to us only through the complete acquisition of the Holy Spirit on our part, which prepares the throne of God in our soul and flesh The all-creative co-existence with our spirit, according to the immutable Word of God: “I will dwell in them, and I will walk and become like God, and these will be My people.” Of course, every virtue done for the sake of Christ gives the grace of the Holy Spirit, but most of all prayer gives, because it is, as it were, always in our hands as an instrument for acquiring the grace of the Spirit... Through prayer we are worthy to converse with the All-Good and Life-Giving God and our Savior ..."

“Father,” I said, “you all deign to talk about acquiring the grace of the Holy Spirit as the goal of Christian life, but how and where can I see it? Good deeds are visible, but can the Holy Spirit be visible? How will I know whether He is with me or not?

“The grace of the Holy Spirit,” answered the elder, “is a light that enlightens a person. The Lord repeatedly demonstrated to many witnesses the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit in those people whom He sanctified and enlightened with His great inspirations. Remember Moses... Remember the transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor.”

“How,” I asked Father Seraphim, “can I know that I am in the grace of the Holy Spirit?”

“This, your love for God, is very simple! - he answered me, took me very tightly by the shoulders and said: “We are both now, father, in the Spirit of God with you!.. Why don’t you look at me?”

I answered: “I can’t look, father, because lightning is pouring from your eyes. Your face has become brighter than the sun, and my eyes are aching with pain!”

O. Seraphim said: “Do not be afraid, your love of God, and now you yourself have become as bright as I myself. You yourself are now in the fullness of the Spirit of God, otherwise you would not be able to see me like this.”

And, bowing his head to me, he quietly said to me in my ear:

“Give thanks to the Lord for His unspeakable mercy towards you. You saw that I did not even cross myself, but only in my heart I mentally prayed to the Lord God and said within myself: “Lord, grant him to clearly and with bodily eyes see the descent of Your Spirit, with which You honor Your servants when You deign to appear in the light of the magnificent Your glory." And so, father, the Lord instantly fulfilled the humble request of the poor Seraphim... How can we not thank Him for the ineffable gift to both of us! This way, father, the Lord God does not always show His mercy to the great hermits. It was the grace of God that deigned to comfort your contrite heart, like a loving mother through the intercession of the Mother of God herself... Just look and do not be afraid - the Lord is with us!”

“What do you feel now?” - Fr. asked me. Seraphim.

“Extraordinarily good!” - I said.

“How good is that? What exactly?"

I answered: “I feel such silence and peace in my soul that I cannot express it in any words!”

“This is your love for God,” said Father Fr. Seraphim is the world about which the Lord said to His disciples: “My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, I give to you. If you had been quicker from the world, the world would have loved its own, but I chose you out of the world, and for this reason the world hates you. But dare, for I have conquered the world.” It is to these people, chosen by the Lord, that the Lord gives the peace that you now feel within yourself. “Peace,” according to the apostolic word, “abounds in all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). What else do you feel?

“Extraordinary sweetness!” - I answered.

“What else do you feel?”

“Extraordinary joy in all my heart!”

Father o. Seraphim continued: “This is the same joy about which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: “When a woman gives birth, she has sorrow... but when a child gives birth, he who does not remember sorrow for joy.” But no matter how comforting this joy that you now feel in your heart is, it is insignificant in comparison with that about which the Lord Himself through the mouth of His Apostle said that that joy “is not seen by the eye, not heard by the ear, not heard in the heart.” Man has not breathed what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9). The preconditions for this joy are given to us now, and if they make our souls feel so sweet, good and cheerful, then what can we say about the joy that is prepared in heaven for those who cry here on earth?.. What do you feel, your love for God?”

I answered: “Extraordinary warmth!”

“How, father, warmth? Why, we are sitting in the forest. Now it’s winter outside, and there’s snow underfoot, and there’s more than an inch of snow on us, and grain is falling from above... How warm can there be here?”

I answered: “And the kind that happens in the bathhouse, when they put it on the heater...”

“And the smell,” he asked me, “is it the same as from the bathhouse?”

“No,” I answered, “there is nothing on earth like this fragrance...”

Father o. Seraphim, smiling pleasantly, said: “And I myself, father, know this just as much as you do, but I’m purposely asking you - do you feel it so?.. After all, the snow does not melt on you or on me and above us too, therefore, this warmth is not in the air, but in ourselves. It is this very warmth about which the Holy Spirit, through the words of prayer, makes us cry out to the Lord: “Warm me with the warmth of the Holy Spirit!” This is how it should actually be, because the grace of God must dwell within us, in our hearts, for the Lord said: “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Well, now there seems to be nothing more to ask, your love for God, how people are in the grace of the Holy Spirit! Will you remember the present manifestation of the ineffable mercy of God that has visited us?”

“I don’t know, father! - I said. “Will the Lord deign me to forever remember this mercy of God as vividly and clearly as I now feel?”

“And I remember,” Father Seraphim answered me, “that the Lord will help you forever keep this in your memory, for otherwise His goodness would not have so instantly bowed to my humble prayer, especially since it was not given to you alone to understand this, and through you for the whole world, so that you yourself can be confirmed in the work of God and could be useful to others.”

It was on Thursday. The day was cloudy. There was a quarter of the snow on the ground, and quite thick snow pellets were falling from above, when Father Seraphim began a conversation with me on his nearby hayfield, near his nearby hermitage opposite the Sarovka River, near the mountain, coming close to its banks.

He placed me on the stump of a tree he had just cut down, and he squatted opposite me.

The Lord revealed it to me, he said great old man, - that in your childhood you diligently wanted to know what the purpose of our Christian life was, and you repeatedly asked many great spiritual persons about this...

I must say here that from the age of 12 this thought constantly bothered me, and I actually approached many of the clergy with this question, but the answers did not satisfy me. The elder did not know this.

But no one,” Father Seraphim continued, “told you definitively about this. They told you: go to church, pray to God, do God’s commandments, do good - that’s the goal of Christian life. And some were even indignant at you because you were busy with non-godly curiosity, and they told you: do not seek higher things for yourself. But they did not speak as they should have. So I, poor Seraphim, will now explain to you what this goal really is.

Prayer, fasting, vigil and all sorts of other Christian deeds, no matter how good they are in themselves, however, doing them alone is not the goal of our Christian life, although they serve as necessary means for achieving it. The true goal of our Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God. Fasting, and vigil, and prayer, and almsgiving, and every good deed done for the sake of Christ are means for acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. Please note, father, that only for the sake of Christ does a good deed bring us the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Still, what we do for the sake of Christ, even though it is good, does not represent a reward for us in the life of the next century, and it does not give us the grace of God in this life either. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said: everyone who does not gather with Me scatters. A good deed cannot be called otherwise than gathering, for although it is not done for the sake of Christ, it is nevertheless good. Scripture says: fear God in every language and do righteousness, He is acceptable. And, as we see from the sacred narrative, this do the truth is so pleasing to God that to Cornelius the centurion, who feared God and did the truth, an angel of the Lord appeared during his prayer and said: “Send to Joppa to Simon Usmar, there you will find Peter and he speaks to you.” verbs of the eternal life, in them you and your whole house will be saved. So, the Lord uses all His divine means to provide such a person with the opportunity for his good deeds not to lose his reward in the life of rebirth. But to do this, we must begin here with right faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world to save sinners... But this is where this pleasingness to God of good deeds, not done for the sake of Christ, is limited: Our Creator provides the means for their implementation. It is up to the person to either implement them or not. That is why the Lord said to the Jews: if they had not seen it, they had not sinned. Now say, we see, and your sin remains on you. If a person, like Cornelius, takes advantage of the pleasure of God in his deed, not done for the sake of Christ, and believes in His Son, then this kind of deed will be imputed to him, as if done for the sake of Christ and only for faith in Him. Otherwise, a person has no right to complain that his good did not go to work. This never happens only when doing any good for Christ’s sake, for good done for His sake not only in the life of the next century intercedes the crown of righteousness, but also in this life fills a person with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and moreover, as it is said: not in God gives the measure of the Holy Spirit, the Father loves the Son and gives everything in His hand.

That's right, your love for God! So the acquisition of this Spirit of God is the true goal of our Christian life, and prayer, vigil, fasting, almsgiving and other virtues done for the sake of Christ are only means to the acquisition of the Spirit of God.

What about acquisition? - I asked Father Seraphim. - I don’t understand this.

Acquisition is the same as acquisition, he answered me, because you understand what acquiring money means. So it is the same with the acquisition of the Spirit of God. After all, you, your love of God, understand what acquisition is in the worldly sense? The purpose of the worldly life of ordinary people is to acquire, or make money, and for nobles, in addition, to receive honors, distinctions and other awards for state merits. The acquisition of the Spirit of God is also capital, but only grace-filled and eternal... God the Word, our Lord the God-man Jesus Christ, likens our life to the marketplace and calls the work of our life on earth a purchase, and says to all of us: buy before I come, the redeeming time, like the days They are crafty, that is, gain time to receive heavenly benefits through earthly goods. Earthly goods are virtues done for Christ's sake, providing us with the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. In the parable of the wise and holy fools, when the holy fools lacked oil, it is said: go and buy in the marketplace. But when they bought, the doors to the bridal chamber were already shut, and they could not enter into it. Some say that the lack of oil among holy virgins signifies a lack of good deeds during their lifetime. This understanding is not entirely correct. What kind of deficiency did they have? good deeds When are they even called holy fools, but still virgins? After all, virginity is the highest virtue, as a state equal to the angels, and could serve as a substitute in itself for all other virtues. I, poor thing, think that they lacked precisely the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. While doing virtues, these virgins, out of spiritual foolishness, believed that this was the only Christian thing, to do only virtues. We have done virtue and thus done the work of God, but whether they received the grace of the Spirit of God or whether they achieved it, they did not care. With such and such ways of life, based only on the creation of virtues without careful testing, do they bring and how much exactly do they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, and it is said in the books of the fathers: there is no way, imagine yourself to be good in the beginning, but its end is at the bottom hellish. Anthony the Great, in his letters to the monks, speaks about such virgins: “Many monks and virgins have no idea about the differences in the wills operating in man, and do not know that there are three wills operating in us: 1st - God’s, all-perfect and all-saving ; 2nd - our own, human, that is, if not harmful, then not saving; 3rd - demonic - quite harmful. And it is this third - the enemy's will - that teaches a person either not to do any virtues, or to do them out of vanity, or for the sake of good alone, and not for the sake of Christ. The second is that our own will teaches us to indulge our lusts, and even, like the enemy teaches, to do good for the sake of good, not paying attention to the grace that we acquire. The first - the will of God and the all-saving one consists only in doing good only for the Holy Spirit... This is the oil in the lamps wise maidens, which could burn brightly and for a long time, and those virgins with these burning lamps could wait for the Groom. who came at midnight, and enter with Him into the chamber of joy. The holy fools, seeing that their lamps were being consumed, although they went to the marketplace to buy oil, did not manage to return in time, for the doors were already closed. The marketplace is our life; the doors of the bridal chamber, closed and not allowing access to the Bridegroom, are human death; wise virgins and holy fools are Christian souls; oil is not works, but the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God received into our nature through them, transforming it from corruption into incorruption, from spiritual death into spiritual life, from darkness into light, from the den of our being, where passions are tied up like cattle and beasts, - to the temple of the Divine, the bright palace of eternal joy in Christ Jesus our Lord, Creator and Savior and Eternal Bridegroom of our souls. How great is God’s compassion for our misfortune, that is, inattention to His care, when God says: Behold, I stand at the door and it’s of no use!.. meaning by the door the course of our life, not yet closed by death. Oh, how I would like, your love for God, that in this life you would always be in the Spirit of God! Where I find you, I will judge you, says the Lord. Woe, great woe, if He finds us burdened with the cares and sorrows of life, for who will endure His wrath and who will stand against His face! That is why it is said: watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune, that is, do not lose the Spirit of God, for vigil and prayer brings us His grace. Of course, every virtue done for the sake of Christ gives the grace of the Holy Spirit, but most of all prayer gives, because it is always in our hands, as an instrument for acquiring the grace of the Spirit... Everyone always has the opportunity to use it... How great is the power of prayer, even for a sinner a person, when she ascends with all her soul, judge by next example Sacred Tradition: when, at the request of a desperate mother who had lost her only begotten son, kidnapped by death, the harlot wife, who came across her path and had not even been cleansed of the sin that had just happened, touched by her mother’s desperate grief, cried out to the Lord: “Not for me, for the sake of the accursed sinner, but Tears for the sake of a mother who grieves for her son and firmly believes in Thy mercy and omnipotence, O Christ God, raise up, O Lord, her son!” - and the Lord raised him up. So, your love for God, the power of prayer is great, and most of all it brings the Spirit of God, and it is most convenient for everyone to correct it. Blessed will we be when the Lord God finds us vigilant, in the fullness of the gifts of His Holy Spirit!..

Well, what, father, should we do with other virtues done for the sake of Christ, in order to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit? After all, you only want to talk to me about prayer?

Acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit and all other virtues for Christ’s sake, trade them spiritually, trade those that give you big profits. Collect the capital of the gracious excesses of God's grace, put them in God's eternal pawnshop from immaterial interest... For example: gives you more grace God's prayer and vigil, watch and pray; Fasting gives a lot of the Spirit of God, fast, alms gives more, do alms, and thus reason about every virtue done for the sake of Christ. So I’ll tell you about myself, poor Seraphim. I come from Kursk merchants. So, when I was not yet in the monastery, we used to trade goods, which gives us more profit. Do the same, father, and, just as in the business of trade, the strength is not in trading more, but in getting more profit, so in the matter of Christian life, the strength is not just in praying or some other -or do a good deed. Although the apostle says, pray unceasingly, but, as you remember, he adds: I would rather speak five words with my mind than thousands with my tongue. And the Lord says: do not everyone say to Me, Lord, Lord! will be saved, but do the will of My Father, that is, he who does the work of God and, moreover, with reverence, for everyone who does the work of God with negligence is cursed. But the work of God is: let him believe in God and Him who was sent, Jesus Christ. If we judge correctly about the commandments of Christ and the Apostles, then our Christian work consists not in increasing the number of good deeds that serve the goal of our Christian life only as means, but in deriving greater benefit from them, that is, in the greater acquisition of the most abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit.

So I would like, your love for God, that you yourself would acquire this ever-depleting source of God’s grace and always judge for yourself whether you are found in the Spirit of God or not; and if - in the Spirit of God, then blessed be God! - there is nothing to talk about: at least now - at the Last Judgment of Christ! For whatever I find, that is what I judge. If not, then we need to figure out why and for what reason the Lord God the Holy Spirit deigned to leave us, and again seek and seek Him... We must attack our enemies who drive us away from Him until their ashes are swept up, as the prophet said David…

Father,” I said, “you all deign to talk about acquiring the grace of the Holy Spirit as the goal of Christian life; but how and where can I drive it? Good deeds are visible, but how can the Holy Spirit be visible? How will I know whether He is with me or not?

We at the present time, - this is how the elder answered, due to our almost universal coldness towards the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and due to our inattention to the actions of His Divine Providence for us and human communication with God, we have reached such a point that, one might say, almost have completely withdrawn from the true Christian life...

... We have become very inattentive to the matter of our salvation, which is why it turns out that we do not accept many words of Holy Scripture in the sense that they should. And all because we do not seek the grace of God, we do not allow it, through the pride of our minds, to take root in our souls, and therefore we do not have true enlightenment from the Lord sent into the hearts of people who with all their hearts hunger and thirst for the truth of God. Here, for example: many interpret that when the Bible says that God breathed the breath of life into the face of Adam, the primordial and created by Him from the dust of the earth, that before that there was no soul and spirit of man, but as if there was only one flesh, created from dust of the earth.

This interpretation is incorrect, for the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the earth in the composition as the holy Apostle Paul affirms, so that your spirit, soul and flesh will be all-perfect at the coming of our Jesus Christ. And all three of these parts of our nature were created from the dust of the earth, and Adam was not created dead, but an active animal being, like other creatures living on earth, animated by God. But this is the power, what if the Lord God had not then breathed into his face this breath of life. that is, the grace of the Lord God the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and honoring the Son and being sent into the world for the Son’s sake, then Adam, no matter how completely superior he was created above the other creatures of God, as the crown of creation on earth, would still remain lacking within himself the Holy Spirit, elevating him to God-like dignity, and would be like all other creatures, although having flesh, soul, and spirit, belonging to each according to their kind, but not having the Holy Spirit within themselves. When the Lord God breathed into Adam’s face the breath of life, then, according to the expression of Moses, Adam also became a living soul, that is, in everything like God, like Him, immortal for centuries. Adam was created not subject to action from any of the elements created by God, neither water could drown him, nor fire could burn him, nor could the earth devour him in its abysses, nor could the air harm him by any of its actions. Everything was submitted to him, as the favorite of God, as the king and owner of creation...

The Lord God gave the same wisdom, strength, omnipotence and all other good and holy qualities to Eve, creating her not from the dust of the earth, but from Adam’s side in the paradise He planted in the middle of the earth. In order to conveniently and always maintain in oneself the immortal, God-gracious and all-perfect properties of this breath of life, God planted the tree of life in the middle of paradise, in the fruits of which he contained the entire essence and completeness of the gifts of this Divine breath of His. If they had not sinned, then Adam and Eve themselves and all their descendants could always, taking advantage of eating from the fruit of the tree of life, maintain in themselves the eternally life-giving power of God's grace and the immortal, eternally youthful fullness of the powers of the flesh, soul and spirit, even in our imagination currently incomprehensible.

When we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - prematurely and contrary to the commandment of God - we learned the difference between good and evil and were subjected to all the disasters that followed for transgressing the commandment of God, then we lost this priceless gift of grace of the Spirit of God, so that until the coming of the God-man into the world Jesus Christ the Spirit of God is not in the world, for Jesus is not glorified...

When He, our Lord Christ, deigned to complete the entire work of salvation, then after His resurrection He breathed on the apostles, renewing the breath of life lost by Adam, and gave them the same grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. But this is not enough - after all, He told them: they have nothing to eat, but He goes to the Father; if He does not go, then the Spirit of God will not come into the world: if He, Christ, goes to the Father, then He will send Him into the world, and He, the Comforter, will instruct them and all those who follow them in all truth, and they will remember everything by them. , and He spoke to them that they were still in the world with him. This was already promised to them by grace and grace. And so, on the day of Pentecost, He solemnly sent down the Holy Spirit to them in the breath of burna, in the form of fiery tongues, which sat on each of them and entered into them, and filled them with the power of fiery Divine grace, dew-bearing, breathing and joyfully acting in the souls partaking of its power and actions.

And this very fire-inspired grace of the Holy Spirit, when it is given to us in the sacrament of holy baptism, is sacredly sealed with Chrismation in the most important places of our flesh indicated by the Holy Church, as the eternal custodian of this grace. They say: the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. And what, father, your love for God, do we, poor people, put our seals on, if not on vessels that store some treasure we value highly? What could be higher than anything in the world and what is more precious than the gifts of the Holy Spirit, sent down to us from above in the sacrament of baptism, is so life-giving for a person that even from a heretic person it is not taken away until his death, that is, until the period designated from above by Providence God for the lifelong test of a person on earth - what he will be good for and what he will be able to accomplish in this God-given period, through the power of grace given to him from above.

And if we had never sinned after our baptism, then we would forever remain holy, blameless and free from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, saints of God. But the trouble is that, while we prosper in age, we do not prosper in grace and in the mind of God, as our Lord Christ Jesus prospered in this; on the contrary, as we become corrupted little by little, we are deprived of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God and become in many different ways by sinful people. But when someone, being excited by the wisdom of God that seeks our salvation, which bypasses all things, decides for her sake to train toward God and vigil for the sake of gaining his eternal salvation, then he, obedient to her voice, must resort to true repentance for all his sins and doing the opposite of the sins he has committed. virtues, and through the virtues of Christ for the sake of acquiring the Holy Spirit, acting within us and establishing the Kingdom of God within us.

It is not for nothing that the Word of God says: the Kingdom of God is within you, and those in need delight in it. That is, those people who, despite the bonds of sin that bind them and do not allow them to come to Him, our Savior, with perfect repentance, despising the entire strength of these sinful bonds, are forced to break their bonds - such people appear before the face of God more snow whitened by His grace. Come, says the Lord: and though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow. So once upon a time the holy seer John the Theologian saw such people in white robes, that is, robes of justification, and finches in their hands as a sign of victory, and they sang to God the wondrous song of Hallelujah. No one can imitate the beauty of their singing. About them the Angel of God said: these are the ones who came from great sorrow, who have worn out their garments and made their garments white in the Blood of Lambs, who have worn them out with suffering and made them white in the communion of the Most Pure and Life-Giving Mysteries of the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb, immaculate and Most Pure of Christ, before all ages. slain Him by one's own will for the salvation of the world, giving us our eternal and inexhaustible salvation and a replacement, surpassing all understanding, of that fruit of the tree of life, which the enemy of men, who fell from heaven, wanted to deprive our human race.

Although the enemy the devil deceived Eve, and Adam fell with her, the Lord not only gave them a Redeemer in the fruit of the seed of the Woman, who trampled death by death, but also gave us all in the Woman, the Ever-Virgin Mother of God Mary, who erased in Herself and erases in everything of the human race, the head of the serpent, the persistent Intercessor to His Son and our God, the shameless and irresistible Intercessor even for the most desperate sinners. For this very reason, the Mother of God is called the Plague of Demons, for there is no way for a demon to destroy a person, if only the person himself does not retreat from resorting to help Mother of God.

Also, your love for God, I, poor Seraphim, must explain what the difference is between the actions of the Holy Spirit, which dwells in sacred mystery in the hearts of those who believe in the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and the actions of sinful darkness, which, at the instigation and kindling of the demonic, thiefly acts in us . The Spirit of God remembers to us the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and acts one with Him, always identically, creating joy in our hearts and directing our steps on a peaceful path, but the flattering, demonic spirit philosophizes contrary to Christ, and its actions in us are rebellious, feet and filled with lust. carnal, lust and worldly pride. Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who lives and believes in Me will not die forever: he who has the grace of the Holy Spirit for right faith in Christ, even if, through human weakness, were to die mentally from some sin, he will not die forever, but will resurrected by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who takes away the sins of the world and bestows grace and grace. It is about this grace, revealed to the whole world and our human race in the God-man, that it is said in the Gospel: In Him was life and life the light of man, and it is added: and the light shines in the darkness and His darkness is not embraced. This means that the grace of the Holy Spirit, bestowed at baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, despite the fall of man, despite the darkness around our soul, still shines in the heart with the ancient Divine light of the priceless merits of Christ. This light of Christ, with the sinner’s unrepentance, says to the Father: Abba Father! Don’t be completely angry at this unrepentance! And then, when the sinner turns to the path of repentance, he completely erases the traces of the crimes committed, clothing the former criminal again with the clothing of incorruptibility, woven from the grace of the Holy Spirit, the acquisition of which, as the goal of Christian life, I have been talking for so long to your love for God...

“How,” I asked Father Seraphim, “can I know that I am in the grace of the Holy Spirit?”

This, your love for God, is very simple! - he answered me. - That’s why the Lord says: everything is simple for those who gain reason... Yes, our whole trouble is that we ourselves are not looking for this Divine mind, which does not boast (is not proud), for it is not of this world...

I answered:

Still, I don’t understand why I can be firmly convinced that I am in the Spirit of God. How can I recognize His true appearance in myself?

Father Father Seraphim answered:

I have already, your love for God, told you in detail how people are in the Spirit of God... What do you, father, need?

“It is necessary,” I said, “for me to understand this thoroughly!”

Then Father Seraphim took me very firmly by the shoulders and said to me:

We are both now, father, in the Spirit of God with you!.. Why don’t you look at me?

I answered:

I can’t look, father, because lightning is pouring from your eyes. Your face has become brighter than the sun, and my eyes are aching with pain!..

Father Seraphim said:

Do not be afraid, your love of God! The willows themselves have now become as bright as I am. You yourself are now in the fullness of the Spirit of God, otherwise you would not be able to see me like this.

And bowing his head to me, he quietly said to me in my ear:

Thank the Lord God for His unspeakable mercy towards you. You saw that I only mentally said to the Lord God in my heart and within myself: Lord! Make him worthy to see with his bodily eyes the descent of Your Spirit, with which You honor Your servants when You deign to appear in the light of Your magnificent glory! And so, father, the Lord instantly fulfilled the humble request of the poor Seraphim... How can we not thank Him for this ineffable gift to both of us! This way, father, the Lord does not always show His mercy to the great hermits. It was the grace of God that deigned to console your contrite heart, like a loving mother, through the intercession of the Mother of God Herself... Well, father, don’t look me in the eyes? Just look and do not be afraid - the Lord is with us! After these words, I looked into his face, and an even greater awe of horror attacked me. Imagine, in the middle of the sun, in the most brilliant brightness of its midday rays, the face of a person talking to you. You see the movement of his lips, the changing expression of his eyes, you hear his voice, you feel that someone is holding you by the shoulders, but not only do you not see these hands, you do not see either yourself or his figure, but only one dazzling light, stretching far, several yards around, and illuminating with its bright brilliance both the snow veil covering the clearing, and the snow pellets falling from above both me and the great old man...

How do you feel now? - Father Seraphim asked me.

Extraordinarily good! - I said.

How good is that? What exactly?

I answered:
- I feel such silence and peace in my soul that I cannot express it in any words!

This, your love for God,” said Father Seraphim, “is the peace about which the Lord said to His disciples: My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, I give to you.” Even though you were quicker from the world, the world loved its own, but because you were chosen from the world, for this reason the world hates you. Either way, dare, for Az will conquer the world. These are the people who are hated from this world, but chosen from the Lord, the peace that you now feel within yourself; peace, according to the apostolic word, abounds in all understanding. This is what the apostle calls it, because no word can express the spiritual well-being that it produces in those people into whose hearts the Lord God introduces it. Christ the Savior calls it peace from His own generosity, and not from this world, for no temporary earthly well-being can give it to the human heart: it is given from above by the Lord God Himself, and that is why it is called the peace of God... What else do you feel? - Father Seraphim asked me.

Extraordinary sweetness! - I said.

And he continued:

This is the sweetness that is mentioned in Holy Scripture: Thy house shall be drunk with fatness, and shall be given to drink of the stream of Thy sweetness. Now this sweetness fills our hearts and spreads through all our veins with indescribable delight. From this sweetness our hearts seem to melt, and we are both filled with such bliss that cannot be expressed in any language... What else do you feel?

Extraordinary joy in all my heart!

And Father Seraphim continued:

When the Spirit of God descends upon a person and overshadows him completely with His influx, then the human soul is filled with inexpressible joy, for the Spirit of God joyfully creates everything that He touches. This is the same joy about which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: when a woman gives birth, she has sorrow, because her year has come; but when a child gives birth, she does not remember sorrow for the joy that a man is born into the world. There will be sorrow in the world, but when I see you, your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. But no matter how comforting this joy that you now feel in your heart may be, it is still insignificant in comparison with that about which the Lord Himself through the mouth of His Apostle said that the joy of that joy is neither seen nor heard, nor heard. the good things that God has prepared for those who love Him have not risen in the heart of man. The preconditions for this joy are given to us now, and if they make our souls feel so sweet, good and cheerful, then what can we say about the joy that is prepared for us in heaven who cry here on earth? So you, father, have cried quite a bit in your life on earth, and look at the joy with which the Lord consoles you even in your life here. Now it is up to us, father, to work, applying labor to labor, to ascend from strength to strength and reach the measure of the age of the fulfillment of Christ... What else do you feel, your love for God?

I said:

Extraordinary warmth!

How, father, warmth? Why, we are sitting in the forest. Now winter is outside, and there is snow under our feet, and there is more than an inch of snow on us, and grain is falling from above... how warm can it be here?

I answered:

And the kind that happens in a bathhouse, when they turn it on the stove and when a column of steam comes out of it...

“And the smell,” he asked me, “is it the same as from the bathhouse?”

No,” I answered, “there is nothing on earth like this fragrance...

And Father Seraphim, smiling pleasantly, said:

And I myself, father, know this just as much as you do, but I’m purposely asking you - do you feel it this way? The absolute truth, your love for God. No pleasant earthly fragrance can be compared with the fragrance that we now feel, because we are now surrounded by the fragrance of the Holy Spirit of God. What earthly thing can be like it!.. Notice, your love for God, you told me that it’s warm all around us, like in a bathhouse, but look: the snow doesn’t melt either on you or on me, and underneath us too . Therefore, this warmth is not in the air, but in ourselves. It is precisely this same warmth for which the Holy Spirit, through the words of prayer, makes us cry out to the Lord: warm me with the warmth of the Holy Spirit! Warmed by it, the hermits and hermits were not afraid of the winter filth, being dressed, as in warm fur coats, in grace-filled clothing, woven from the Holy Spirit. This is how it should actually be, because thanking God should dwell within us, in our hearts, for the Lord said: the kingdom of God is within you. By the kingdom of God, the Lord meant the grace of the Holy Spirit. This kingdom of God is now within you, and the grace of the Holy Spirit shines from the outside and warms us, and, filling the air around us with a variety of fragrances, delights our feelings with heavenly delight, filling our hearts with unspeakable joy.

Our present situation is the same one about which the apostle spoke: the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but truth and peace in the Holy Spirit. Our faith does not consist in words of ultimate earthly wisdom, but in the manifestation of strength and spirit. This is the state we are in now. It is about this state that the Lord said: there are none of those standing here, who have not tasted death, until they see the kingdom of God coming in power... Will you remember the present manifestation of the indescribable mercy of God that has visited us?

I don’t know, father,” I said, “whether the Lord will deign me forever to remember this mercy of God as vividly and clearly as I now feel.

“And I remember,” Father Seraphim answered me, “that the Lord will help you to keep this in your memory forever, for otherwise His grace would not have so instantly bowed to my humble prayer and would not have so quickly preceded to listen to the poor Seraphim, especially since for you alone it was given to you to understand this, and through you for the whole world, so that you yourself, having established yourself in the work of God, could be useful to others... Right faith in Him and His Only Begotten Son is sought from God. For this, the grace of the Holy Spirit is given abundantly from above. The Lord is looking for a heart filled with love for God and neighbor - this is the throne on which He loves to sit and on which He appears in the fullness of His heavenly glory. Son, give Me your heart,” He says, “and I myself will add everything else to you, for the kingdom of God can be contained in the human heart.” The Lord commands His disciples: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you. After all, your heavenly Father demands all your strength.

The Lord God does not reproach us for using earthly blessings, for He Himself says that according to our duty in earthly life, we demand all our strength, that is, everything that calms us on earth. human life and makes it more convenient and the easy way ours to the heavenly fatherland... And the Holy Church is that this should be given to us by the Lord God; and although sorrows, misfortunes are varied and inseparable from our life on earth, the Lord God did not want and does not want us through the apostles to bear each other’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. The Lord Jesus personally gives us the commandment that we love each other and, being comforted by this mutual love, make it easier for ourselves on the sad and difficult path of our journey to the heavenly fatherland. Why did He come down from heaven to us, if not in order to, having taken upon Himself our poverty, to enrich us with the wealth of His goodness and His ineffable bounties. After all, He did not come to be served, but may Himself serve others and may He give His soul for the deliverance of many. So you, your love for God, do the same and, having seen the mercy of God clearly shown to you, report this to everyone who desires salvation. For there is much harvest, says the Lord, but you do little... So the Lord God led us out to work and gave us the gifts of His grace, so that, reaping the salvation of our neighbors through the multiplicity of those brought by us into the kingdom of God, we would bring Him fruit - about thirty, ovo sixty, ovo one hundred.

Let us guard ourselves, father, so that we do not be condemned with that crafty and lazy slave who buried his talent in the ground, but will try to imitate those good and faithful servants of the Lord who brought to their Lord one instead of two - four, another instead of five - ten. There is no need to doubt the mercy of the Lord God. Yourselves, your love for God, you see how the words of the Lord, spoken through the prophet, came true on us: I am God from afar, but God is near and at your mouth is your salvation...

The Lord is near to all who call on Him in truth, and He does not have sight on His face, for the Father loves the Son and gives everything in His hand, if only we ourselves love Him, our heavenly Father, truly, in a filial way. The Lord listens equally to a monk and a layman, a simple Christian, as long as both are Orthodox and both love God from the depths of their souls, and both have faith in Him, even like a grain of peas, and both can move mountains. One moves thousands, two are darkness. The Lord Himself says: all things are possible to the believer, and Father Saint Paul exclaims: all things are possible through Christ who strengthens me.

Isn’t our Lord Jesus Christ even more marvelous than this when he speaks of those who believe in Him: believing in Me, I will not do just the same things that I do, but will also do greater things than these, because I go to My Father and pray to Him for you, that your joy may be filled. Until now, do not offer anything in My name, but now ask and accept... So, your love for God, whatever you ask the Lord God for, you accept everything, as long as it is for the glory of God or for the benefit of your neighbor, because and He attributes the benefit of his neighbor to His glory, which is why He says: everything that you have done to one of the least of these, do to Me. So do not have any doubt that the Lord God will not fulfill your requests, as long as they are either for the glory of God or for the benefit and edification of others. But even if for your own needs, or benefit, or benefit, you needed something, and even the Lord God would deign to send it to you just as quickly and benevolently, if only the extreme need and necessity had arisen, for the Lord loves to those who love Him: the Lord is good to everyone, and His compassion is in all His deeds; but He will do the will of those who fear Him, He will hear their prayer, and He will fulfill all their advice; The Lord will fulfill all your requests. However, beware, your love of God, so as not to ask the Lord for what you do not have an extreme need for. The Lord will not refuse you even this for your Orthodox faith in Christ the Savior, for the Lord will not betray the rod of the righteous and will strictly do the will of His servant, but He will exact from him why he disturbed Him without special need, asking Him for something that he could very conveniently do without.

And throughout this conversation, from the very time Father Seraphim’s face became illuminated, this vision did not cease... I myself saw the indescribable brilliance of light emanating from him, with my own eyes, which I am ready to confirm with an oath.

July 19, 1754 (or 1759), Kursk - January 2, 1833, Sarov Monastery) - hieromonk of the Sarov Monastery, founder and patron of the Diveevo Convent. Glorified by the Russian Church in 1903 as a saint on the initiative of Tsar Nicholas II.
Today we are publishing an excerpt from the sermon of a doctor of theology, church historian, protopresbyter about, delivered at the Epiphany Cathedral in Moscow at Vespers on the Week before Epiphany (January 15, 1978).

Dear brothers and sisters! ... churching, this sanctification, this Christianization of the entire life of a given culture, a given society, a given country, people and state, never succeeds if it is not associated with transformation, change, sanctification, churching, Christianization of each individual human personality, each individual person.

This is the tragedy historical Christianity, in that it proclaimed high social ideals - the creation of an ideal Christian society, an ideal Christian culture- and at the same time failed to transform, educate, Christianize every single Christian.

And therefore, Christianity as a social force that forms all of humanity into a single holy Christian ideal society and culture, in essence, failed. And it tragically failed. For it failed to combine, to unite two elements: the social ideal and personal holiness. It has always been like this with us: either people personally tried to be saints, to live a holy life pleasing to God, and then they left public ideals, or people indulged in the public ideal and then forgot about personal holiness. But here is an example of such a church call, Christ’s call to personal holiness in the name of public ideals, to personal holiness, which is a necessary condition every Christian success in public work is...

Here he was an amazing saint, a saint whom it is difficult to even imagine, difficult to even describe to others, because he, having gone through the entire feat of monastic work, all types of monastic hermitage - pillarism, seclusion, all types of Christian sublime perfect aspiration towards God, and then - clergy , when he was open to advice, to influence people, having gone through all this, all his life he was surprisingly even, surprisingly the same, despite the variety of his exploits. He was always unusually kind, unusually affectionate, unusually joyful, unusually cheerful. It is amazing! With everyone with whom he spoke, to whom he addressed, he had no other words than “my joy”: “Christ is risen, my joy!” He said to everyone: “Get tenderness” and prayed before the icon of the Mother of God, which is called “Tenderness.” What is tenderness? Tenderness, dear brothers and sisters - this is a feeling that, unfortunately, we rarely have. Joy happens often, joy happens often, and tenderness... Tenderness is the ability to rejoice, rejoice, the ability to be in an unusually good mood when there is no reason for this. A person rejoices when he has reasons to be happy, a person is happy when something funny happens. And tenderness is an ability, this is a feature of the soul, when a person is constantly rejoicing, constantly blessed, constantly, as if in an Easter mood, then when there is no reason, when there are no visible reasons for this, when, on the contrary, everything visible reasons and the circumstances of life contradict this, pushing towards grief, despair, crying, irritation, anger - but a person is capable of being touched.

This is the amazing ability of St. Seraphim. And it was not for nothing that he prayed in front of the “Tenderness” icon and always told everyone, often repeated: “My joy, gain, i.e. gain, tenderness." Or he also said: “Acquire a peaceful spirit, acquire tenderness, and thousands around you will be saved.” Because tenderness, this peaceful spirit, this joyful perception of even misfortune, even pain, even ugliness, even evil - it affects others, as if communicated to others.

I would like, dear brothers and sisters, to read to you one section from the memoirs of St. Seraphim, read his own words, because if I tell you, many of you will doubt how correctly I reproduced them. For this will sound very unusual, but meanwhile, this is St. Seraphim spoke. He said: “Joy is not a sin; it drives away fatigue. But fatigue can cause despondency. And there is nothing worse than despondency. It brings everything with it, despondency. So, when I entered the monastery, I also visited the choir, and I was so cheerful, my joy.” It was cheerful in the choir, in the monastery! “It used to happen that when I came to the choir, the brethren would get tired, well, despondency and attack them. And I amuse them, they don’t even feel tired. After all, it’s not good to say or do something bad. But in the temple of God it is not proper to do evil. But to say a kind, friendly, cheerful word, so that everyone’s spirit in the face of the Lord is always cheerful and not sad, is not at all a sin. There is no way for us to lose heart, because Christ conquered everything, raised Adam, freed Eve, put death to death!”

These are amazing words, dear brothers and sisters, words that show that St. Seraphim had this early Christian spirit of joy, constant joy, constant tenderness, constant affection. That is why he called on everyone to acquire this tenderness, to acquire, to acquire this joy, because this acquires the most important thing, as he said - the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Here, I will read you his own words: “Prayer, fasting, vigil and all other Christian deeds, no matter how good they are in themselves, however, doing them is not the goal of our Christian life, although they serve as necessary means for achieving it . The true goal of our Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. Good done for the sake of Christ not only gives truth in the life of the next century, but also in this life fills a person with the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

Dear brothers and sisters, this is the ideal, this final goal put forward Rev. Seraphim before every Christian, before every person. Joy, affection, tranquility, spirituality, tenderness, cheerfulness - in order to acquire the Holy Spirit. And at the same time, he said, the acquisition of the Holy Spirit is not there, in heaven, where it will be complete, but it begins here on earth. He called people to transformation already here on earth, to a transformation that begins in the life of every person through the power and action of the Holy Spirit. That theosis, that deification, which, according to the teachings of the ancient Eastern fathers and teachers of the church, is the goal, the final result of every person, of every human holiness, likeness to God - it already begins here, it must begin already in the life of every person.

And we know how this manifested itself in St. Seraphim. We have records of Motovilov, a man who communicated with St. Seraphim for many years and was healed by him, an intelligent man who knows spiritual life, who wrote down these experiences word for word, for certain. And Motovilov wrote down for us how he went with St. Seraphim is this path of acquiring the Holy Spirit. He did not understand what it meant – “acquiring the Holy Spirit”, how it manifested itself. And then St. Seraphim showed him - he took him by the shoulders and said: “What are you feeling now? We are already with you in the Holy Spirit!” And Motovilov looked at the face of the saint. Seraphim - and it glows unusually. And Seraphim asks: “What do you see with me?” - “I see such a light that I cannot bear.” Asks Rev. Seraphim: “What are you feeling now?” (And this was in winter, there was deep snow and frost, they were in the forest). “I feel,” he says, “extraordinary tranquility, extraordinary peace, silence and joy in my soul.” And then St. Seraphim asks: “What else do you feel?” And Motovilov here describes all those feelings of transformation that were experienced by him, a man like us, but ascended, thanks to St. Seraphim, by the action of the Holy Spirit to this degree of deification, to this theosis, to this acquisition of the Holy Spirit. And he describes that he felt an inexpressible sweetness, an inexpressible joy, an incredible warmth. Then Seraphim said: “Well, how do you feel the warmth? After all, there is snow and frost all around, and the snow that falls from the sky does not melt on us.” "Yes, but I feel like I'm in a bathhouse." Seraphim says: “So, this is the internal acquisition of the Holy Spirit, this is the Kingdom of God among us.” “Well, what smell do you smell, like in a bathhouse?” “No, I have never smelled such a smell in my life. It fills me with extraordinary joy and pleasure.” “This is,” he said, “the feeling of acquiring the Holy Spirit.”

Dear brothers and sisters! This, of course, is an extraordinary experience, an exceptional experience, perhaps, which St. Seraphim showed Motovilov what it means to acquire the Holy Spirit. But this is what is the goal of each of us: through internal transformation to achieve this acquisition of the Holy Spirit.

Orthodox community, No. 55, 2000

The conversation between St. Seraphim and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Motovilov (1809-1879) about the purpose of Christian life took place in November 1831 in the forest, not far from the Sarov monastery, and was recorded by Motovilov. The manuscript was discovered 70 years later in the papers of Nikolai Alexandrovich’s wife, Elena Ivanovna Motovilova. We are publishing the text of the conversation from the 1903 edition with some abbreviations. The apparent simplicity of the conversation is deceptive: the teachings are delivered by one of the greatest saints of the Russian Church, and the listener is a future ascetic of the faith, healed from an incurable illness through the prayer of Seraphim. It was N.A. Before his death, the Monk Seraphim bequeathed to Motovilov material concerns for his Diveyevo orphans, and for the founding of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery for them.

It was on Thursday. The day was cloudy. There was a quarter of the snow on the ground, and rather thick snow pellets were falling from above, when Father Seraphim began a conversation with me on his nearby hay field, near his nearby hermitage opposite the Sarovka River, near the mountain that comes close to its banks.

He placed me on the stump of a tree he had just cut down, and he squatted opposite me.

The Lord revealed to me,” said the great elder, “that in your childhood you earnestly wanted to know what the purpose of our Christian life was, and you repeatedly asked many great spiritual persons about this...

I must say here that from the age of 12 this thought constantly bothered me, and I actually approached many of the clergy with this question, but the answers did not satisfy me. The elder did not know this.

But no one,” Father Seraphim continued, “told you definitively about this. They told you: go to church, pray to God, do God’s commandments, do good - that’s the goal of Christian life. And some were even indignant at you because you were busy with non-godly curiosity, and they told you: do not seek higher things for yourself. But they did not speak as they should have. So I, poor Seraphim, will now explain to you what this goal really is.

Prayer, fasting, vigil and all other Christian deeds, no matter how good they are in themselves, however, the goal of our Christian life is not in doing them alone, although they serve as necessary means for achieving it. The true goal of our Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God. Fasting, and vigil, and prayer, and almsgiving, and every good deed done for the sake of Christ are means for acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. Please note, father, that only for the sake of Christ does a good deed bring us the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Still, what is done not for the sake of Christ, although good, does not represent a reward for us in the life of the next century, and in this life it does not give us the grace of God either. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said: “Everyone who does not gather with Me scatters” (Matthew 12:30; Luke 11:23). A good deed cannot be called anything other than gathering, for although it is not done for the sake of Christ, it is nevertheless good. Scripture says: “Fear God in every nation and do righteousness, He is acceptable” (Acts 10:35). And, as we see from the Holy Narrative, this one who does the truth is so pleasing to God that to Cornelius the centurion, who feared God and did the truth, an angel of the Lord appeared during his prayer and said: “Send to Joppa to Simon Usmar, there you will find Peter and that He speaks the words of the eternal life, in them you and your whole house will be saved” (Acts 10: 5-6). So, the Lord uses all His Divine means to provide such a person with the opportunity for his good deeds not to lose his reward in the life of rebirth. But to do this, we must begin here with the right faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world to save sinners... But this is where this pleasingness to God of good deeds, not done for the sake of Christ, is limited: Our Creator provides the means for their implementation. It is up to the person to either implement them or not. That is why the Lord said to the Jews: if they had not seen it, they had not sinned. Now say, we see, and your sin remains on you. If a person, like Cornelius, takes advantage of the pleasure of God in his deed, not done for the sake of Christ, and believes in His Son, then this kind of deed will be imputed to him, as if done for the sake of Christ and only for faith in Him. Otherwise, a person has no right to complain that his good did not go to work. This never happens only when doing any good for Christ’s sake, for good done for His sake not only in the life of the next century intercedes the crown of righteousness, but also in this life fills a person with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and moreover, as it is said: not in God gives the measure of the Holy Spirit, the Father loves the Son and gives everything in His hand.

That's right, your love for God! So the acquisition of this Spirit of God is the true goal of our Christian life, and prayer, vigil, fasting, almsgiving and other virtues done for the sake of Christ are only means to the acquisition of the Spirit of God.

What about acquisition? - I asked Father Seraphim. - I don’t understand this.

Acquisition is the same as acquisition, he answered me, because you understand what acquiring money means. So it is the same with the acquisition of the Spirit of God. After all, you, your love of God, understand what acquisition is in the worldly sense? The purpose of the worldly life of ordinary people is to acquire, or make money, and for nobles, in addition, to receive honors, distinctions and other awards for state merits. The acquisition of the Spirit of God is also capital, but only grace-filled and eternal... God the Word, our Lord the God-man Jesus Christ, likens our life to the marketplace and calls the work of our life on earth a purchase, and says to all of us: “Buy before I come, redeeming the time “For these days are evil,” that is, gain time to receive heavenly blessings through earthly goods. Earthly goods are virtues done for Christ's sake, providing us with the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. In the parable of the wise and holy fools, when the holy fools lacked oil, it is said: “Go and buy in the marketplace.” But when they bought, the doors to the bridal chamber were already shut, and they could not enter into it. Some say that the lack of oil among holy virgins signifies a lack of good deeds during their lifetime. This understanding is not entirely correct. What kind of lack of good deeds did they have, when they are even called holy fools, but are still called virgins? After all, virginity is the highest virtue, as a state equal to the angels, and could serve as a substitute in itself for all other virtues. I, poor thing, think that they lacked precisely the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. While practicing virtues, these virgins, out of spiritual unreason, believed that this was the only Christian thing, to do only virtues. We have done virtue, and thus we have done the work of God, but whether they received the grace of the Spirit of God or whether they achieved it, they did not care. About such and such ways of life, based only on the creation of virtues without careful testing, do they bring and how much exactly do they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, and it is said in the books of the Fathers: “There is another way, imagine being good in the beginning, but its ends are in the bottom is hell. Anthony the Great, in his letters to the monks, speaks about such virgins: “Many monks and virgins have no idea about the differences in the wills operating in man, and do not know that there are three wills operating in us: 1st - God’s, all-perfect and all-saving ; 2nd - our own, human, that is, if not harmful, then not saving; 3rd - demonic - quite destructive.” And it is this third, enemy will, that teaches a person either not to do any virtues, or to do them out of vanity, or for the sake of good alone, and not for the sake of Christ. The second - our own - will teaches us to do everything to please our lusts, and even, as the enemy teaches, to do good for the sake of good, not paying attention to the grace that it acquires. The first - the will of God and the all-saving one consists only in doing good only for the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, as an eternal, inexhaustible treasure... This is the oil in the lamps of the wise virgins, which could lightly and lastingly burn, and those virgins with these burning lamps could wait for the Bridegroom. who came at midnight, and enter with Him into the chamber of joy. The holy fools, seeing that their lamps were going out, although they went to the marketplace to buy oil, did not manage to return in time, for the doors were already closed. The marketplace is our life; the doors of the bridal chamber, closed and not allowing the Bridegroom, are human death; wise virgins and holy fools are Christian souls; oil is not works, but the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God received into our nature through them, transforming it from corruption into incorruption, from spiritual death into spiritual life, from darkness into light, from the den of our being, where passions are tied up like cattle and beasts, - to the temple of the Divine, to the bright palace of eternal joy in Christ Jesus our Lord, Creator and Savior and Eternal Bridegroom of our souls. How great is God’s compassion for our misfortune, that is, inattention to His care for us, when God says: “Behold, I stand at the door and it does no good!”, meaning by the door the course of our life, not yet closed by death. Oh, how I wish, your love for God, that in this life you would always be in the Spirit of God! “Whatever I find, that is what I will judge,” says the Lord. Woe, great grief, if He finds us burdened with the cares and sorrows of life, for who will endure His anger and who will stand against His face! That is why it is said: “watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune,” that is, do not lose the Spirit of God, for vigil and prayer bring us His grace. Of course, every virtue done for the sake of Christ gives the grace of the Holy Spirit, but prayer gives it most of all, because it is always, as it were, in our hands, as an instrument for acquiring the grace of the Spirit... Everyone always has the opportunity to use it... How Great is the power of the prayer of even a sinful person, when it ascends with all his soul, judge by the following example of Holy Tradition: when, at the request of a desperate mother who had lost her only begotten son, kidnapped by death, a harlot wife who came across her way and even from her just ex not cleansed of sin, touched by the desperate grief of her mother, she cried out to the Lord: “Not for the sake of the accursed sinner, but for the sake of tears for the mother, who grieves for her son and is firmly confident in Thy mercy and omnipotence, Christ God, raise up, O Lord, her son! - and the Lord resurrected him. So, your love for God, the power of prayer is great, and most of all it brings the Spirit of God, and it is most convenient for everyone to correct it. Blessed will we be when the Lord God finds us vigilant, in the fullness of the gifts of His Holy Spirit!..

Well, what, father, should we do with other virtues done for the sake of Christ, in order to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit? After all, you only want to talk to me about prayer?

Acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit and all other virtues for Christ’s sake, trade them spiritually, trade those that give you big profits. Collect the capital of the gracious excesses of God's grace, put them in God's eternal pawnshop from immaterial interest... For example: prayer and vigil gives you more of God's grace - watch and pray; Fasting gives a lot of the Spirit of God - fast, alms gives more - do alms, and thus reason about every virtue done for the sake of Christ. So I’ll tell you about myself, poor Seraphim. I come from Kursk merchants. So, when I was not yet in the monastery, we used to trade goods that gave us more profit. Do the same, father, and, just as in the business of trade, the strength lies not in just trading, but in getting more profit, so in the business of Christian life, the strength does not lie in just praying or other things. to do some good deed. Although the apostle says, “pray without ceasing,” but, as you remember, he adds: “I would rather speak five words with my mind than thousands with my tongue.” And the Lord says: “Do not everyone say to Me, Lord, Lord! will be saved, but do the will of My Father,” that is, he who does the work of God and, moreover, with reverence, for everyone who does the work of God with negligence is cursed. And the work of God is: “that you believe in God, and He sent Him, Jesus Christ.” If we judge correctly about the commandments of Christ and the Apostles, then our Christian work consists not in increasing the number of good deeds that serve the goal of our Christian life only as means, but in deriving greater benefit from them, that is, in the greater acquisition of the most abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit.

So I would like, your love for God, that you yourself would acquire this ever-fading source of God’s grace and always judge for yourself whether you are found in the Spirit of God or not; and if - in the Spirit of God, then blessed be God! - there is nothing to grieve about: at least now - at Last Judgment Christ! For “what I find, in that I judge.” If not, then we need to figure out why and for what reason the Lord God the Holy Spirit deigned to leave us, and again seek and seek Him... Our enemies who drive us away from Him must be attacked in such a way until their ashes are scattered as said the prophet David...

Father,” I said, “you all deign to talk about acquiring the grace of the Holy Spirit as the goal of Christian life; but how and where can I see her? Good deeds are visible, but how can the Holy Spirit be visible? How will I know whether He is with me or not?

“We are now,” the elder answered, “due to our almost universal coldness towards the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and due to our inattention to the actions of His Divine Providence for us and man’s communication with God, we have come to such a point that, one might say, have almost completely withdrawn from the true Christian life...

We have become very inattentive to the matter of our salvation, which is why it turns out that we do not accept many words of Holy Scripture in the sense that they should. And all because we do not seek the grace of God, we do not allow it, through the pride of our minds, to dwell in our souls and therefore we do not have true enlightenment from the Lord sent into the hearts of people who with all their hearts hunger and thirst for the truth of God. Here, for example: many interpret that when the Bible says, “God breathed the breath of life into the face of Adam, the first created and created by Him from the dust of the earth,” as if this meant that in Adam before that there was no soul and spirit of man, but there was as if there was only one flesh, created from the dust of the earth. This interpretation is incorrect, for the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the earth in the composition, as the holy Apostle Paul states, “that your spirit, soul and flesh may be perfect at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And all three of these parts of our nature were created from the dust of the earth, and Adam was not created dead, but as an active animal being, like other animate creatures of God living on earth. But this is the power that if the Lord God had not then breathed into his face this breath of life, that is, the grace of the Lord God of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son and for the sake of the Son sent into the world, then Adam, no matter how perfect he was excellently created above other God's creatures, as the crown of creation on earth, would still remain without the Holy Spirit within him, elevating him to God-like dignity, and would be like all other creatures, although having flesh, soul, and spirit belonging to to each according to their kind, but they do not have the Holy Spirit within them. When the Lord God breathed into Adam’s face the breath of life, then, according to Moses’ expression, “Adam became a living soul,” that is, completely like God in everything and like Him, immortal forever. Adam was created to such an extent that he was not subject to the action of any of the elements created by God, that neither water could drown him, nor fire could burn him, nor could the earth devour him in its abysses, nor could the air harm him by any of its actions. Everything was submitted to him, as the favorite of God, as the king and owner of creation...

The Lord God gave the same wisdom, strength, omnipotence and all other good and holy qualities to Eve, creating her not from the dust of the earth, but from Adam’s side in the sweet Eden, in the paradise He planted in the middle of the earth. In order for them to be able to comfortably and always maintain within themselves the immortal, God-gracious and all-perfect properties of this breath of life, God planted the tree of life in the middle of paradise, in the fruits of which he contained the entire essence and completeness of the gifts of this Divine breath of His. If they had not sinned, then Adam and Eve themselves and all their descendants could always, taking advantage of eating from the fruit of the tree of life, maintain in themselves the eternally life-giving power of God's grace and the immortal, eternally youthful fullness of the powers of the flesh, soul and spirit, even in our imagination currently incomprehensible.

When, by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - prematurely and contrary to the commandment of God - they learned the difference between good and evil and were subjected to all the disasters that followed for transgressing the commandment of God, they were deprived of this priceless gift of grace of the Spirit of God, so that until the coming of the God-man into the world Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God, “is not for nothing in the world, for Jesus is not for nothing glorified”...

When He, our Lord Christ, deigned to complete the entire work of salvation, then after His resurrection He breathed on the Apostles, renewing the breath of life lost by Adam, and gave them the same grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. But this is not enough - after all, He told them: “They have nothing to eat, but He goes to the Father; if He does not go, then the Spirit of God will not come into the world: if He, Christ, goes to the Father, then He will send Him into the world, and He, the Comforter, will instruct them and all those who follow them in all truth and will remember everything to them. , even as He spoke to them, they were still in the world with them.” This was already promised to them by grace and grace. And so on the day of Pentecost, He solemnly sent down the Holy Spirit to them in the breath of the storm, in the form of fiery tongues, which sat on each of them and entered into them, and filled them with the power of fiery Divine grace, breathing dew and joyfully acting in the souls partaking of its power and actions.

And this very fire-inspired grace of the Holy Spirit, when it is given to us in the sacrament of holy Baptism, is sacredly sealed with Chrismation in the most important places of our flesh indicated by the Holy Church, as the eternal custodian of this grace. It is said: “the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And what, father, your love for God, do we, poor people, put our seals on, if not on vessels that store some treasure we value highly? What could be higher than anything in the world and what is more precious than the gifts of the Holy Spirit sent down to us from above in the sacrament of Baptism, for this baptismal grace is so great and so necessary, so life-giving for a person that even from a heretic person it is not taken away until his death , that is, until the period designated from above by the Providence of God for the lifelong trial of a person on earth - what, de, he will be good for and what, de, he will be able to accomplish in this time given by God, through the power of grace given to him from above.

And if we had never sinned after our Baptism, then we would forever remain holy, blameless and free from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, saints of God. But the trouble is that, while we prosper in age, we do not prosper in grace and in the mind of God, as our Lord Christ Jesus prospered in this; on the contrary, as we become corrupted little by little, we are deprived of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God and become in many different ways by sinful people. But when someone, being excited by the wisdom of God that seeks our salvation, which bypasses all things, decides for her sake to train towards God and vigil for the sake of gaining his eternal salvation, then he, obedient to her voice, must resort to true repentance for all his sins and doing the opposite of what he has done. sins of virtues, and through the virtues of Christ for the sake of acquiring the Holy Spirit, acting within us and establishing the Kingdom of God within us.

It is not for nothing that the Word of God says: “The Kingdom of God is within you, and the needy delight it.” That is, those people who, despite the bonds of sin that bind them and do not allow their violence and incitement to new sins to come to Him, our Savior, with perfect repentance, to suffer with Him, despising the entire strength of these sinful bonds, are forced to break the bonds them - such people then really appear before the face of God whiter than snow with His grace. “Come,” says the Lord, “even though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white like snow.” So once upon a time the holy seer John the Theologian saw such people in white robes, that is, robes of justification, and “finches in their hands” as a sign of victory, and they sang the wondrous song “Hallelujah” to God. “No one can imitate the beauty of their singing.” About them, the angel of God said: “these are those who came from great sorrow, who have consumed their garments and made their garments white in the Blood of Lambs,” - having worn them with suffering and made them white in the communion of the Most Pure and Life-Giving Mysteries of the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb, the Immaculate and Most Pure of Christ, before all ages, slain by His own will for the salvation of the world, giving us eternal and inexhaustible salvation, our path of eternal life in return is favorable at His terrible judgment and a replacement, dearest and surpassing all understanding, of that fruit of the tree of life, which our human race wanted to deprive the enemy of men, the star who fell from heaven.

Although the enemy the devil deceived Eve, and Adam fell with her, the Lord not only gave them a Redeemer in the fruit of the Seed of the Woman, who trampled death by death, but also gave us all in the Woman, the Ever-Virgin Mother of God Mary, who erased in Herself and erases in everything of the human race, the head of the serpent, the persistent Intercessor to His Son and our God, the shameless and irresistible Intercessor even for the most desperate sinners. For this very reason, the Mother of God is called “The Plague of Demons,” for there is no way for a demon to destroy a person, as long as the person himself does not retreat from resorting to the help of the Mother of God.

Also, your love for God, I, poor Seraphim, must explain what the difference is between the actions of the Holy Spirit, which dwells in sacred mystery in the hearts of those who believe in the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and the actions of sinful darkness, at the instigation and kindling of the demonic thief in us . The Spirit of God remembers to us the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and acts in unity with Him, always identically, creating joy in our hearts and directing our steps on a peaceful path, but the flattering, demonic spirit philosophizes contrary to Christ, and its actions in us are rebellious, obstinate and filled with lust. carnal, lust and worldly pride. “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die”; He who has the grace of the Holy Spirit for his right faith in Christ, even if, through human weakness, were to die mentally from some sin, he will not die forever, but will be resurrected by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who takes away the sins of the world and bestows grace upon us. About this grace, revealed to the whole world and our human race in the God-Man, it is said in the Gospel: “In Him was life and life the light of man,” and it is added: “and the light shines in the darkness and His darkness is not embraced.” This means that the grace of the Holy Spirit, bestowed upon baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, despite the fall of man, despite the darkness around our soul, still shines in the heart from time immemorial with the former Divine light of the priceless merits of Christ. This light of Christ, with the sinner’s unrepentance, says to the Father: Abba Father! Don’t be completely angry at this unrepentance! And then, when the sinner turns to the path of repentance, he completely erases the traces of the crimes committed, clothing the former criminal again with the clothing of incorruptibility, woven from the grace of the Holy Spirit, the acquisition of which, as the goal of Christian life, I have been talking about for so long to your love for God...

“How,” I asked Father Seraphim, “can I know that I am in the grace of the Holy Spirit?”

This, your love for God, is very simple! - he answered me. “That’s why the Lord says: “Everything is simple to those who gain understanding.” Yes, our whole trouble is that we ourselves are not looking for this Divine mind, which does not boast (is not proud), for it is not of this world... Being in this mind, the Apostles always saw whether the Spirit abides whether God is in them or not, and, imbued with it and seeing the presence of the Spirit of God with them, they affirmatively said that their work was holy and completely pleasing to the Lord God.

I answered:

Still, I don’t understand why I can be firmly convinced that I am in the Spirit of God. How can I recognize His true appearance in myself?

Father Father Seraphim answered:

I have already, your love for God, told you that it is very simple and told you in detail how people are in the Spirit of God... What do you need, father?

“It is necessary,” I said, “for me to understand this thoroughly!”

Then Father Seraphim took me very firmly by the shoulders and said to me:

We are both now, father, in the Spirit of God with you!.. Why don’t you look at me?

I answered:

I can’t look, father, because lightning is pouring from your eyes. Your face has become brighter than the sun, and my eyes are aching with pain!..

Father Seraphim said:

Do not be afraid, your love of God! And now you yourself have become as bright as I am. You yourself are now in the fullness of the Spirit of God, otherwise you would not be able to see me like this.

And bowing his head to me, he quietly said to me in my ear:

Thank the Lord God for His ineffable mercy towards you. You saw that I only mentally prayed to the Lord God in my heart and said within myself: “Lord! Honor him clearly and with his bodily eyes to see the descent of Your Spirit, with which You honor Your servants when You deign to appear in the light of Your magnificent glory!” And so, father, the Lord instantly fulfilled the humble request of the poor Seraphim... How can we not thank Him for this ineffable gift to both of us! This way, father, the Lord God does not always show His mercy to the great hermits. It was the grace of God that deigned to console your contrite heart, like a loving mother, through the intercession of the Mother of God Herself... Well, father, don’t look me in the eyes? Just look and do not be afraid - the Lord is with us!

After these words, I looked into his face, and an even greater awe of horror attacked me. Imagine, in the middle of the sun, in the most brilliant brightness of its midday rays, the face of a person talking to you. You see the movement of his lips, the changing expression of his eyes, hear his voice, feel that someone is holding you by the shoulders, but not only do you not see these hands, you do not see yourself or his figure, but only one dazzling light and stretching far, several yards around, and illuminating with its bright brilliance both the snow veil covering the clearing, and the snow pellets falling from above both me and the great old man...

How do you feel now? - Father Seraphim asked me.

Extraordinarily good! - I said.

How good is that? What exactly?

I answered:

I feel such silence and peace in my soul that I cannot express it in any words!

This, your love for God,” said Father Seraphim, “is the peace about which the Lord told His disciples: “My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, I give to you.” Even though you were quicker from the world, the world loved its own, but because you were chosen from the world, for this reason the world hates you. Either way, dare, for Az will conquer the world.” It is to these people, hated by this world, but chosen by the Lord, that the Lord gives the peace that you now feel within yourself; “peace,” according to the apostolic word, “above all understanding.” This is what the apostle calls it, because no word can express the spiritual well-being that it produces in those people into whose hearts the Lord God introduces it. Christ the Savior calls it peace from His own generosity, and not from this world, for no temporary earthly well-being can give it to the human heart: it is given from above by the Lord God Himself, and that is why it is called the peace of God... What else do you feel? - Father Seraphim asked me.

Extraordinary sweetness! - I said.

And he continued:

This is the sweetness about which the Holy Scripture says: “Thy house shall be drunk with fatness, and I will give Thy stream of sweetness to drink.” Now this sweetness fills our hearts and spreads through all our veins with indescribable delight. From this sweetness our hearts seem to melt, and we are both filled with such bliss that cannot be expressed in any language... What else do you feel?

Extraordinary joy in all my heart!

And Father Seraphim continued:

When the Spirit of God descends upon a person and overshadows him with the fullness of His influx, then the human soul is filled with inexpressible joy, for the Spirit of God joyfully creates everything that He touches. This is the same joy about which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: “When a woman gives birth, she has sorrow, because her year is come: but when the child gives birth, he who does not remember the sorrow for the joy that a man was born into the world. You will be in the world of sorrow, but when I see you, your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” But no matter how comforting this joy that you now feel in your heart is, it is still insignificant in comparison with that about which the Lord Himself, through the mouth of His Apostle, said that that joy “neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, not a good breath has entered into the heart of man, such as God has prepared for those who love Him.” The prerequisites for this joy are given to us now, and if they make our souls feel so sweet, good and cheerful, then what can we say about the joy that is prepared for us in heaven who cry here on earth?! So you, father, have cried quite a bit in your life on earth, and look at the joy with which the Lord consoles you even in your life here. Now it’s up to us, father, to apply labor after labor, to ascend from strength to strength and to reach the measure of the age of Christ’s fulfillment... What else do you feel, your love for God?

I said:

Extraordinary warmth!

How, father, warmth? Why, we are sitting in the forest. Now winter is outside, and there is snow under our feet, and there is more than an inch of snow on us, and cereals are falling from above... how warm can it be here?!

I answered:

And the kind that happens in a bathhouse, when they turn it on the stove and when a column of steam comes out of it...

“And the smell,” he asked me, “is it the same as from the bathhouse?”

No,” I answered, “there is nothing on earth like this fragrance...

And Father Seraphim, smiling pleasantly, said:

And I myself, father, know this just as much as you do, but I’m purposely asking you - do you feel it this way? The absolute truth, your love for God. No pleasant earthly fragrance can be compared with the fragrance that we now feel, because we are now surrounded by the fragrance of the Holy Spirit of God. What earthly thing can be like it!.. Notice, your love for God, you told me that it’s warm all around us, like in a bathhouse, but look, the snow doesn’t melt either on you or on me, and underneath us too . Therefore, this warmth is not in the air, but in ourselves. It is precisely this same warmth about which the Holy Spirit, through the words of prayer, makes us cry out to the Lord: “warm me with the warmth of the Holy Spirit!” Warmed by it, the hermits and hermits were not afraid of the winter filth, being dressed, as in warm fur coats, in grace-filled clothing, woven from the Holy Spirit. This is how it should actually be, because the grace of God must dwell within us, in our hearts, for the Lord said: “The kingdom of God is within you.” By the Kingdom of God, the Lord meant the grace of the Holy Spirit. This kingdom of God is now within you, and the grace of the Holy Spirit shines from without and warms us, and, filling the air around us with a variety of fragrances, delights our senses with heavenly delight, filling our hearts with unspeakable joy.

Our current situation is the same one about which the Apostle said: “The kingdom of God is food and drink, but truth and peace in the Holy Spirit.” Our faith consists “not in words exceeding earthly wisdom, but in the manifestation of power and spirit.” This is the state we are in now. It is about this state that the Lord said: “There are none from those who stand here, who have not tasted death, until they see the kingdom of God coming in power”... Will you remember the present manifestation of the ineffable mercy of God that has visited us?

I don’t know, father,” I said, “whether the Lord will deign me forever to remember this mercy of God as vividly and clearly as I now feel.

“But I remember,” Father Seraphim answered me, “that the Lord will help you to keep this in your memory forever, for otherwise His goodness would not have so instantly bowed to my humble prayer and would not have so quickly preceded to listen to the poor Seraphim, especially since for you alone it was given to you to understand this, and through you for the whole world, so that you yourself, having established yourself in the work of God, could be useful to others... Right faith in Him and His Only Begotten Son is sought from God. For this, the grace of the Holy Spirit is given abundantly from above. The Lord is looking for a heart filled with love for God and neighbor - this is the throne on which He loves to sit and on which He appears in the fullness of His heavenly glory. “Son, give Me your heart! - He says, “and I myself will add everything else to you,” for the Kingdom of God can be contained in the human heart. The Lord commands His disciples: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. For your Heavenly Father knows that you require all these things.”

The Lord God does not reproach us for using earthly blessings, for He Himself says that according to our position in earthly life, we demand all of these things, that is, everything that calms our human life on earth and makes our path to the heavenly fatherland convenient and easier. .And the Holy Church prays that this will be granted to us by the Lord God; and although sorrows, misfortunes and various needs are inseparable from our life on earth, the Lord God did not want and does not want us to be in only sorrows and misfortunes, which is why he commands us through the apostles to bear each other’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law Christov. The Lord Jesus personally gives us the commandment that we love each other and, being comforted by this mutual love, make it easier for ourselves on the sad and difficult path of our journey to the heavenly fatherland. Why did He come down from heaven to us, if not in order to, having taken upon Himself our poverty, to enrich us with the wealth of His goodness and His ineffable bounties. After all, He did not come to be served, but may Himself serve others and may He give His soul for the deliverance of many. So do you, your love for God, and, having seen the mercy of God clearly shown to you, communicate this to everyone who desires salvation. “For the harvest is plentiful,” says the Lord, “but the laborers are few.” So the Lord God led us out to work and gave us the gifts of His grace, so that, reaping the salvation of our neighbors through the greatest number of those brought by us into the Kingdom of God, we would bring Him fruit - some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred.

Let us take care of ourselves, father, so as not to be condemned with that crafty and lazy slave who buried his talent in the ground, but let us try to imitate those good and faithful servants of the Lord who brought to their Master one instead of two - four, another instead of five - ten. There is no need to doubt the mercy of the Lord God: you yourself, your love for God, see how the words of the Lord, spoken through the Prophet, came true on us: “I am God from afar, but God is near and is your salvation in your mouth”...

“The Lord is near to all who call on Him in truth, and He has no sight of their faces, for the Father loves the Son and gives everything in His hand,” if only we ourselves loved Him, our heavenly Father, truly, in a filial way. The Lord listens equally to a monk and a layman, a simple Christian, as long as both are Orthodox, and both love God from the depths of their souls, and both have faith in Him, even “like the grain of a pea,” and both will move mountains. “One moves thousands, but two move darkness.” The Lord Himself says: “All things are possible to him who believes,” and Father Saint Paul loudly exclaims: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Isn’t it even more marvelous than this, our Lord Jesus Christ says about those who believe in Him: “Believe in Me, not just the works that I have done, but even greater works than these that I will do, because I go to My Father and pray to Him for you, that your joy may be filled. Hitherto you have not asked for anything in My name, now ask and receive.”... So, your love for God, whatever you ask from the Lord God, accept everything, as long as it is for the glory of God or for the benefit neighbor, because He also attributes the benefit of his neighbor to His glory, and therefore He says: “Everything that you did to one of the least of these, you did to Me.” So do not have any doubt that the Lord God will not fulfill your requests, as long as they relate either to the glory of God or to the benefit and edification of your neighbors. But even if for your own needs, or benefit, or benefit, you needed something, and even so quickly and benevolently, the Lord God would deign to send you, if only the extreme need and necessity insisted on it, for the Lord loves to those who love Him: the Lord is good to everyone, but He is generous and gives to those who do not call on His name, and His bounty in all His works; but He will do the will of those who fear Him and He will hear their prayer, and He will fulfill all their advice; The Lord will fulfill all your requests. However, beware, your love of God, so as not to ask the Lord for what you do not have an extreme need for. The Lord will not deny you this for your Orthodox faith in Christ the Savior, for the Lord will not give up the rod of the righteous to the lot of sinners and will do the will of His servant strictly, but He will exact from him why he disturbed Him without any special need, asked Him for something without which he could very conveniently get by with.

And throughout this conversation, from the very moment when Father Seraphim’s face became illuminated, this vision did not cease... I myself saw the indescribable brilliance of light emanating from him, with my own eyes, which I am ready to confirm with an oath.