Nikolai Motovilov on the Seraphim of Sarov. Conversation between the Monk Seraphim of Sarov and Nikolai Motovilov about the acquisition of the holy spirit. V. the mother of God - the plague of demons

The conversation between the Monk Seraphim and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Motovilov (1809–1879) about the goal of Christian life took place in November 1831 in a 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 publish the text of the conversation in the 1903 edition with some abbreviations.

The seeming simplicity of the conversation is deceiving: the teachings are delivered by one of the greatest saints of the Russian Church, and the listener is the future ascetic of the faith, healed through the prayer of Seraphim from an incurable disease. It was N.A. The Monk Seraphim bequeathed to Motovilov the material cares for his Diveyevo orphans, about the founding of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery.

It was on Thursday. The day was overcast. It was about a quarter of snow on the ground, and a rather thick snow pellet was crushed from above, when Father Seraphim began a conversation with me on a nearby hayfield, near his nearest wilderness opposite the Sarovka river, near a mountain that comes close to its banks.

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

- The Lord revealed to me, - said the great elder, - that in your childishness you zealously wanted to know what the purpose of our Christian life is, and you have repeatedly asked many great spiritual persons about this ...

I must say here that since the age of 12 this thought has persistently disturbed me, and I really addressed 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, “did not tell you that definitely.

And, as we see from the sacred narrative, this "do righteousness" is so pleasing to God that the centurion Cornelius, who feared God and did righteousness, appeared an angel of the Lord during his prayer and said: "Let's go to Joppa to Simon Usmar, tamo rite Peter and toy ti speaks verbs eternal belly, 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 the reward in the life of the Divine Life. But for this it is necessary to begin here with the right faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to save sinful people ... But this is what limits this pleasure to God of good deeds that are not done for Christ's sake: our Creator provides the means for their implementation. It remains for a person to either implement them or not. That is why the Lord told the Jews: “If they did not see it faster, they had no quicker sin. Now speak- we see, and your sin abides on you "(). Take advantage of the man, like Cornelius, the pleasure of God in his work, not done for Christ's sake, and believes in His Son, then this kind of work will be imputed to him, as if done for Christ's sake and only for faith in Him. In this case, a person has no right to complain that his good has not gone into business.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, the crown of righteousness intercedes, but also in this life fills a person with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and moreover, as it is said: “He gives the Spirit too much Holy, The Father loves the Son and gives everything in His hand " ().

So it is, your love of God! So in the acquisition of this Spirit of God is the true goal of our Christian life, and vigilance, fasting, alms and other virtues done for Christ's sake are only means to acquire the Spirit of God.

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

Earthly goods are virtues done for Christ's sake, giving us the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, when the foolish fools lacked oil, it is said: “Go buy it at the marketplace” (). But when they bought, the doors to the bridal chamber were already closed, and they could not enter it. Some say that the lack of oil among the holy fools signifies a lack of good deeds in their lifetime. This understanding is not entirely correct.

What was it they lacked in good deeds, when they, though fools, are still called virgins? After all, virginity is the highest virtue, as a state of equal angels, and could serve as a substitute in itself for all other virtues. I, poor man, think that it was precisely the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God that was lacking. Creating virtues, these virgins, out of spiritual foolishness, believed that the point was only Christian, to do some virtues. We did virtue, and thus did the work of God, and before they received the grace of the Spirit of God, whether they achieved it, they did not care. About such and such ways of life, based only on one creation of virtues without careful testing, whether they bring and exactly how much they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, and it is said in the fatherly books: there is another way, think to be good at the beginning, but its end is in the bottom hellish. in his letters to the monks he says about such virgins: “Many monks and virgins do not have any idea about the differences in wills operating in a person, and do not know that three wills are at work in us: 1st - God's, all-perfect and all-saving; 2nd - own, human, that is, if not harmful, then not saving; 3rd - demonic - quite pernicious. And this is the third - the enemy's will - and teaches a person either not to do any virtues, or to do them out of vanity, or for one good, and not for the sake of Christ. The second is that our own will teaches us to delight our lusts, or even, as the enemy teaches, to do good for the sake of good, not paying attention to the grace he receives. The first - the will of God and all-saving, consists only in doing good only for the Holy Spirit ... This is precisely the oil in the lamps of the wise virgins, which could burn lightly and for a long time, and those virgins with these with burning lamps, they could also wait for the Bridegroom, who came in midnight, and enter with Him into the chamber of joy. The holy fools, seeing that their lamps were extinguished, although they went to the marketplace, and buy oil, did not have time to return in time, for the doors were already closed. Marketplace is our life; the doors of the bridal chamber, closed and not allowing access to the Bridegroom, are human; the wise and foolish virgins are Christian souls; oil is not deeds, but the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God received through them inside our nature, 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 like cattle and beasts, - to the temple of the Divine, the luminous palace of eternal joy in Christ Jesus our Lord, Creator and Deliverer and Eternal Bridegroom of our souls. How great is God's compassion for our misery, that is, inattention to His care for us, when God says: “I’m standing at the door and confused”()! .. meaning by the door the flow of our life, not yet closed. Oh, how I wish, your Love for God, that in this life you would always be in the Spirit of God!

“In what I find, in that I judge,” says the Lord. Woe, great woe, if He finds us burdened with care 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, but do not enter the attack"(), that is, do not be deprived of the Spirit of God, for vigilance and prayer brings us His grace. Of course, every virtue done for Christ's sake gives the grace of the Holy Spirit, but above all it gives prayer, because it is always in our hands, as an instrument for acquiring the grace of the Spirit ... There is always an opportunity for everyone ... How great is power prayers of even a sinful person, when she ascends with all my heart, judge by the following example of Holy Tradition: when, at the request of a desperate mother, who has lost her only-begotten son, abducted by death, a whore wife, who got in her way and even from a recent sin is not purified, touched by the desperate sorrow of her mother, cried out to the Lord: "Not for the sake of the accursed sinner, but tears for the sake of a mother grieving for her son and firmly believing in Your mercy and omnipotence, Christ God, resurrect, Lord, her son!" - and the Lord raised him up. So, your love for God, the power of prayer is great, and it most of all 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 about, father, to be with other virtues, done for Christ's sake, in order to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit? After all, you will only speak to me about prayer?

Here I will tell you about myself, poor Seraphim. I come from Kursk merchants.

So, when I was not yet in the monastery, we used to trade in goods that give us more profit. Do the same you, father, do, and, as in the trade business, it is not the power to trade more, but to get more profit, so in the Christian life it is not the power to just pray or whatever. -or a good deed to do. Although the apostle says, "Pray without ceasing"(), but yes, as you remember, he adds: “I would rather say five words with my mind than a thousand with my tongue.” () And the Lord says: “Don't everyone speak to Me, Lord, Lord! will be saved but do the will of my Father "(), that is, doing the work of God and, moreover, with reverence, for “cursed is everyone like does the work of God with negligence "(). And the work of God is: "Yes ... you believe in God ... and He also sent Jesus Christ to eat"(). If we judge correctly about the commandments of Christ and the apostles, then our Christian work consists not in increasing the count of good deeds that serve the goal of our Christian life only by means, but in extracting more benefit from them, that is, in obtaining the most abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit.

So I wish, your Love for God, that you yourself would acquire this ever-inexhaustible source of the grace of God and always reason to yourself whether you are found in the Spirit of God or not; and if - in the Spirit of God, then, blessed! - there is nothing to talk about: even now - to the terrible judgment of Christ! For in what I find, in that I judge. If not, then it is necessary to understand why and for what reason the Lord God the Holy Spirit has deigned to leave us, and again seek and seek Him ... Our enemies who drive us away from Him must be attacked so long as their dust is swept away, as said the prophet David ...

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

`` We are at the present time, '' the elder answered, because of our almost universal coldness towards the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and through our inattention to the actions of His Divine Providence for us and the communication of man with God, to the point that, one might say, almost completely retired from a truly Christian life ...

We have become very inattentive to the work of our salvation, which is why it turns out that we accept many words of Holy Scripture in the wrong sense, as we should. And this is all because we do not seek the grace of God, we do not allow it, due to the pride of our mind, to dwell in our souls, and therefore we do not have true enlightenment from the Lord, sent to the hearts of people who are hungry and thirsty for the righteousness of God with all their hearts. For example: many interpret that when the Bible says - God breathed in the breath of life in the person of the primordial Adam and created by Him from the dust of the earth (), as if before that there was no human soul and spirit, but as if there was only one flesh, made of earthly dust.

This interpretation is incorrect, for the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the earth in the same composition as the holy Apostle Paul asserts that your spirit, soul and flesh may be all-perfect at the coming of our Jesus Christ. And all these three 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 animate creatures of God living on earth. But this is the strength that if the Lord God had not breathed life into his face later, that is, the grace of the Lord God the Holy Spirit from the Father who proceeds and rests in the Son and for the sake of the Son into the world sent, then Adam, no matter how perfect he was superbly created over other God's creatures, as the crown of creation on earth, nevertheless, it would remain without the Holy Spirit within himself, raising him to God-like dignity, and would be like all other creatures, although they have flesh, soul, and spirit belonging to to each according to his kind, but the Holy Spirit within himself to those who have not. When the Lord God breathed into his face the breath of life, then, in the words of Moses, and "Adam was quick to live"(), that is, in everything, similar to God, like Him, immortal for centuries and centuries. was created not subject to action from any of the elements created by God, it was neither drowned by water, nor fire burned, nor the earth could devour in its chasms, nor the air could damage it by any of its actions. Everything was subdued to him, as a favorite of God, as a king and owner of creation ...

The same wisdom, and strength, and omnipotence and all the other good and holy qualities the Lord God gave to Eve, having created her not from the dust of the earth, but from the rib of Adam in the paradise planted by Him in the middle of the earth. In order to comfortably and always maintain in oneself the immortal, God-gracious and all-perfect properties of this breath of life, God planted in the middle of paradise the tree of life, in the fruits of which he enclosed all the essence and fullness of the gifts of this Divine breath of His. If they had not sinned, then Eve themselves and all their offspring could always, using the eating of 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 in the present is confusing.

When we eat of 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 underwent all the calamities that followed the transgression of the commandment of God, then we lost this priceless gift of the grace of the Spirit of God, so that until the very advent of the God-man into the world Jesus Christ the Spirit of God is not in the world, as Jesus is not glorified ...

When He, our Lord Christ, deigned to complete the whole work of salvation, then after His resurrection, He breathed on the apostles, resuming the breath of the lost life, and bestowed upon them the same grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. But this is not enough - after all, He told them: "They have no food, 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 their teaching into all truth and will remember them all , even He spoke to them still existing in peace with him (). It was already promised by Him "Grace as well as grace" ().

And so on the day of Pentecost He solemnly sent down the Holy Spirit to them in a stormy breath, in the form of tongues of fire, on each of them who sat down and entered into them, and filled them with the power of fiery Divine grace, breathing dewy and joyfully acting in souls who partake 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 anointed with chrismation in the most important places of our flesh indicated by the holy Church, as the eternal guardian of this grace. It is said: the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. And on what, father, your love of God, do we, the poor, put our seals, if not on the vessels that store some precious precious thing for us? What can be higher than everything 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, so life-giving for a person, that even from a heretic man it will not be taken away until his death, that is until the period designated from above by the Providence of God for a lifelong probation of man on earth - for which he will be fit and that he, in this God-given period, through the mediation of the power of grace given to him from above, will be able to accomplish.

And if we never sinned after our baptism, we would forever remain holy, blameless, and saints of God, taken away from all defilement of the flesh and spirit. But the trouble is that, when we succeed in age, we do not succeed in grace and in the mind of God, as our Lord Christ Jesus did in that, but on the contrary, being corrupted little by little, we are deprived of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God and we become in many different ways by sinful people. But when someone, being agitated by the wisdom of God seeking our salvation, bypassing every kind, decides for her sake to matins to God and vigil for the sake of gaining his eternal salvation, then that obedient to her voice must resort to the true repentance in all his sins and the creation of the opposite of the sins committed. virtues, and through the virtues of Christ for the sake of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, acting within us and within us arranging the Kingdom of God.

It is not without reason that the Word of God says: "Within you is the kingdom of God, and the needy delight in it"(,). That is, those people who, in spite of the sinful bonds that bound 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 If your sins will be, as crimson, as if the snow will whiten them "(). So once the holy seer John the Theologian saw such people in white clothes, that is, clothes of justification, and dates in their hands, as a sign of victory, and they sang a wondrous song to God Hallelujah... No one can imitate the beauty of their singing. The Angel of God said about them: "These are the essence, those who came from great sorrow, who asked for their garments and made their garments whitened in the Blood of the Lamb."(), - asking them with suffering and making them in communion of the Most Pure and Life-giving Mysteries of the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb is immaculate and the Most Pure Christ, before all ages, slain by His own will for the salvation of the world, giving us our eternal and indefinite salvation and replacement, every mind surpassing, that fruit of the tree of life, which the human enemy of men, who fell from heaven Dennitsa, wanted to deprive our human race.

Although the enemy, the devil, deceived Eve, and Adam fell with her, but the Lord not only gave them the Redeemer in the fruit of the seed of the Woman who had trampled death, but also gave us all in the Woman, the Ever-Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, erased in Herself and erased in all kind to the human head of the serpent, the persistent Intercessor to His Son and our God, the unashamed and invincible Representative even for the most desperate sinners. For this very reason, the Mother of God is called the Ulcer 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.

The Spirit of God remembers to us the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and acts as one with Him, always identically, rejoicing our hearts and guiding our feet on the path of peace, and the flattering, demonic spirit, contrary to Christ, wisely, and his actions in us are rebellious, and his feet are fulfilled. "Lust of the flesh, lust of hair and pride of life"(). 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 his rightful faith in Christ, if through human weakness and died mentally from any sin, he would not die forever, but will be resurrected by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who takes away the sins of the world and gives the tuna "Grace as well as grace".

It is about this grace, revealed to the whole world and our human race in the God-man, and it is said in the Gospel: "In Tom, belly and belly are light of man", and added: "And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not embrace Him" ().

This means that the grace of the Holy Spirit, given at baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, despite the human falls, 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 unrepentant repentance, speaks to the Father: “Abba Father! Do not be completely angry with this impenitence! " And then, when the sinner turns to the path of repentance, he completely obliterates the traces of the crimes committed, dressing the former criminal again with incorruptible clothes woven from the grace of the Holy Spirit, about the acquisition of which, as the goal of Christian life, I have been talking for so long to your Love of God ...

- How is it, - I asked Father Seraphim, - to know that I am in the grace of the Holy Spirit?

- This, your love of God, is very simple! - he answered me. - That is why the Lord says: the whole essence is simple for those who acquire reason ... But our whole trouble is that we ourselves are not looking for this divine reason, which does not boast (does not take pride), for it is not of this world ...

I answered:

- Still, I do not understand why I can be firmly convinced that I am in the Spirit of God. How can I recognize His true manifestation in myself?

Father Father Seraphim answered:

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

“It’s necessary,” I said, “so that I understand this well! ..

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

- We are both now, father, in the Spirit of God with you! .. Why are you not looking at me?

I answered:

- I can't, father, look, because lightning is pouring from your eyes. Your face has become brighter than the sun, and my eyes ache 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 have been able to see me like that.

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

- Thank the Lord God for His unspoken mercy to you. You saw that only in my heart I said to the Lord God and inside myself: “Lord! Grant him, and with bodily eyes, to see the descent of Thy Spirit, with which Thou art worthy of Thy servants, when Thou deign to appear in the light of Thy glorious glory! " And so, father, the Lord instantly fulfilled the humble request of the wretched Seraphim ... How can we not thank Him for this ineffable gift to both of us! That way, father, the Lord does not always show His mercy to the great hermits. It is the grace of God that has deigned to comfort your contrite heart, like a loving mother, through the intercession of the Mother of God Herself ...

Well, father, don't look me in the eye? Look simple and don't be afraid

- The Lord is with us!

After these words I looked into his face, and an even greater awe-inspiring horror fell upon me. Imagine, in the middle of the sun, in the brightest 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 you don’t see these hands, you don’t see either yourself or his figure, but only one blinding light, stretching far, several fathoms in a circle, and illuminating with its bright shine both the snow veil covering the meadow, and the snow pellet, which showered me and the great old man from above ...

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

- Unusually good! - I said.

- How good is it? 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 world about which the Lord told His disciples: "I give my peace to you, not as peace gives, I give to you" (). "If you were faster from the world, the world loved its own, but as if you were elected from the world, for this sake the world hates you"(). Obache "Dare, as I have won the world"(). It is to these people, who are hated from this world, who are chosen by the Lord that peace that you now feel in yourself; the world, according to the apostolic word, “all mind prevails.” () This is what the apostle calls him, because no word can express the well-being of the soul that he produces in those people in whose hearts the Lord instills him. Christ the Savior calls him peace from bounty His own, and not from this world, for no temporary earthly well-being can give him the human heart: he is given from above from the Lord God Himself, and therefore is called the world of God ...

- What else do you feel? - Father Seraphim asked me.

- Unusual sweetness! - I said.

And he continued:

This is the sweetness that the Holy Scriptures say: "From fatness to Thy house they shall be drunk, and I shall fill with a stream of Thy sweetness"(). It is this sweetness that now fills our hearts and spreads through all our veins with our ineffable delight. From this sweetness, our hearts seem to melt, and we are both filled with such bliss that no language can express ...

What else do you feel?

- An extraordinary joy in all my heart!

And Father Seraphim continued:

- When the Spirit of God descends on a person and overshadows him with the fullness of His inspiration, then the human soul is filled with inexpressible joy, for the Spirit of God gladdens everything, no matter what He touches. This is the very joy about which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: “A wife always gives birth, she has grief, as if her year is coming: when she gives birth to a child, she does not remember the sorrow for joy, as a man was born into the world. ... In the world of sorrow you will but always I will see, 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, it is nevertheless insignificant in comparison with that about which the Lord Himself through the mouth of His Apostle said that "An eye not in sight, not an ear to hear, not a good ascending in a man's heart, I have prepared for those who love Him"(). The preconditions of this joy are given to us now, and if they make it so sweet, good and cheerful in our souls, then what can we say about the joy that is in store for us, in heaven, crying here on earth? Here you too, father, have wept quite enough in your life on earth, and look, with what joy the Lord consoles you even in this life. Now it is ours, father, to work, work to work, applying to us, to ascend from strength to strength and reach the measure of the age of fulfillment of Christ ... What else do you feel, your love of God?

I said:

- Extraordinary warmth!

- How, father, warmth? Why, we are sitting in the forest. Now it's winter in the yard, and there is snow under our feet, and there is more snow on us, and the croup from above is falling ... what kind of warmth can there be?

I answered:

- And the kind that happens in the bath, when they put it on the stove and when steam is pouring out of it in a column ...

- And the smell, - he asked me, - the same as from the bath?

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

And Father Seraphim, smiling pleasantly, said:

Therefore, this warmth is not in the air, but in ourselves. It is precisely that warmth about which the Holy Spirit with the words of prayer makes us cry out to the Lord: “Warm me with the warmth of the Holy Spirit”! She was warmed by her, 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 be in reality, 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 inside you and is, and the grace of the Holy Spirit shines from the outside, and warms us, and, filling the air around us with a varied fragrance, delights our senses with negligible delight, filling our hearts with unspeakable joy.

Our present situation is the same about which the apostle said: "The kingdom of God is food and drink, but truth and peace ... about Dus Svyat "(). Our faith consists "Not in front earthly wisdom in words, but in the manifestation of strength and spirit "(). It is in this state that we are now with you. It is about this state that the Lord said: "The essence is not from those who stand here, who do not have a taste of death, they even see the kingdom of God, which has come 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 to remember me forever, as vividly and clearly as I now feel, this mercy of God.

- And I think, - 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 anticipated so soon to listen to the poor Seraphim, especially since not for you alone it was given to you to understand this, but through you for the whole world, so that you yourself, having been established in the work of God, can be useful to others ... God is required to have the right faith in Him and His Only Begotten Son. For this, the grace of the Holy Spirit is abundantly given from above. The Lord seeks 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").

The Lord God does not reproach for the use of earthly goods, for He Himself says that according to our position in earthly life, we demand all of these, that is, everything that calms our human life on earth and makes our way to the heavenly fatherland convenient and easier. Relying on this, St. The Apostle Peter said that, in his opinion, there is nothing better in the world than piety combined with contentment. And the Holy Church prays that this will be given to us by the Lord God; and although sorrows, misfortunes and various needs are inseparable from our life on earth, yet the Lord God did not want and does not want us to be only in sorrows and misfortunes, which is why he commands us through the apostles to bear each other's burdens and thus fulfill the law Khristov (). The Lord personally gives us a commandment that we love each other and, consoling with this mutual love, make it easier for ourselves the sad and narrow path of our walking towards the heavenly fatherland. Why did He come down to us from heaven, if not in order to take our poverty upon Himself and enrich us with the riches of His goodness and His unspeakable bounties? After all, He did not come to serve Him, but let Himself serve others and give His soul for the deliverance of many. Likewise, you, your love for God, do and, having seen the mercy of God clearly shown to you, communicate this to everyone who desires salvation for himself. “The harvest is plentiful,” says the Lord, “ there are few workers " ()...

Let us look after ourselves, father, so as not to be condemned to us with that crafty and lazy slave who buried his talent in the ground, and we will try to imitate those good and faithful servants of the Lord, who brought their Lord one instead of two - four, the other instead of five - ten. There is nothing to doubt about the mercy of the Lord God. Yourself, 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 cut it down ”() and at your mouth is your salvation () ...

The Lord is near to all who call Him in truth, and He does not have sight on His face, 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 if the grain is upright, and both will move mountains. One moves a thousand, two darkness.

The Lord Himself says: "Everything is possible for the believer"(), and Father Saint Paul exclaims: "All I can about Christ strengthening me" ().

Isn't our Lord Jesus Christ even more marvelous than this about those who believe in Him: “Believing in Me, things are not exactly what I’m doing, but I’ll do more than these, like I’m I go to My Father and pray to Him for you, that your joy may be filled. Hitherto do not ask for anything in the name of Me, now ask and receive ”() ...

So, your love for God, whatever you ask the Lord God for, you perceive everything, as long as it is for the glory of God or for the benefit of your neighbor, because He also relates the benefit of your neighbor to His glory, and therefore says: "All, even to the one of the least of these who have created, create for Me"(). So do not have any doubt that the Lord God will not fulfill your requests, as long as they only relate to the glory of God, or to the benefit and edification of neighbors.

But even if for your own need, or benefit, or benefit you needed something, and even so quickly and obediently the Lord God will send you, if only this is an extreme need and necessity, for the Lord loves loving Him: "The Lord is good to all, and His compassion in all His works"(), but the will of those who fear Him he will do and he will hear their prayer, “and all their counsel will fulfill them”; the Lord will fulfill all your petitions (). However, beware, your Love of God, lest you ask the Lord, which you will not have an urgent need. The Lord will not deny you even that for your Orthodox faith in Christ the Savior, for the Lord will not betray the rod of the righteous and will unswervingly do the will of His servant, but he will exact from him why he disturbed Him unnecessarily, asked Him for what without which he could very convenient to dispense with.

And throughout this conversation, from the very time when Father Seraphim's face brightened up, this vision did not stop ... The inexpressible blaze of light emanating from him I saw myself, with my own eyes, which I am ready to confirm with an oath.

The conversation between the Monk Seraphim and Nikolai Alexandrovich Motovilov (1809-1879) about the goal of Christian life took place in November 1831 in a 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 publish the text of the conversation in the 1903 edition with some abbreviations. The seeming simplicity of the conversation is deceiving: the teachings are delivered by one of the greatest saints of the Russian Church, and the listener is the future ascetic of the faith, healed through the prayer of Seraphim from an incurable disease. It was N.A. Before his death, the Monk Seraphim bequeathed to Motovilov the material cares for his orphans from Diveyevo, about the founding of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery.

"It was on Thursday. The day was cloudy. There was a quarter of snow on the ground, and a rather thick snow pellet poured from above, when Father Seraphim began a conversation with me on a nearby hayfield, near his nearest desert, opposite the Sarovka River, by the mountain," coming close to its shores.

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

The Lord revealed to me, - said the great elder, - that in your childishness you zealously wanted to know what the purpose of our Christian life is, and you have repeatedly asked many great spiritual persons about this ...

But no one, - continued Father Seraphim, - has definitely told you about this. They told you: go to church, pray to God, do the commandments of God, do good - this is the goal of Christian life for you. And some were even indignant at you because you were busy with not godly curiosity, and told you: do not seek higher yourself. But they didn’t speak as they should. Here I, poor Seraphim, will explain to you now what this goal really is.

Prayer, fasting, vigilance and all other Christian deeds, no matter how good they are in themselves, but doing only them is the goal of our Christian life, although they serve as the necessary means to achieve it. The true goal of our Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God. Fasting, and vigilance and prayer, and alms, and every good deed done for Christ's sake are the means for acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. Note, father, that a good deed done only for Christ's sake brings us the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Yet, for Christ's sake, what is done, although good, does not represent a reward in the life of the century to come, and in this life it does not give the grace of God either. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said: everyone who does not gather with Me, he scatters. A good deed cannot be called otherwise than gathering, for although it is not done for Christ's sake, it is nevertheless good. Scripture says: fear God in every tongue and do righteousness, it is pleasing to Him. And, as we see from the sacred narrative, this do the righteousness is so pleasing to God that to Cornelius the centurion, who feared God and did righteousness, an angel of the Lord appeared during his prayer and said: send to Joppa to Simon Usmar, there you have found Peter and that one speaks the verbs of the eternal life, in them you and your whole house will be saved. So, the Lord uses all his divine means in order to give such a person the opportunity for his good deeds, and he will not lose the reward in the life of the Divine Life. But for this it is necessary to begin here with the right faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to save sinful people ... But this is what limits this pleasure to God of good deeds that are not done for Christ's sake: our Creator provides the means for their implementation. It remains for a person to either implement them or not. That is why the Lord said to the Jews: if they had not seen it faster, they had no quicker sin. Now speak, we see, and your sin remains on you. Take advantage of a man, like Cornelius, the pleasure of God of his work, not done for Christ's sake, and believing in His Son, then this kind of work will be imputed to him, as if done for Christ's sake and only for faith in Him. Otherwise, a person has no right to complain that his good did not go into business. This never happens only when doing some kind of good for Christ's sake, for good, for His sake, is done, not only in the life of the next century, the crown of righteousness intercedes, 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 Holy Spirit, the Father loves the Son and gives everything in His hand.

So it is, your love of God! Thus, the true goal of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of this Spirit of God, and prayer, vigil, fasting, alms and other virtues for Christ's sake are only means to acquire 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, - after all, you understand what acquiring money means. So it is all the same the acquisition of the Spirit of God. After all, you, your Love for God, understand what acquisition is in the worldly sense? The purpose of the mundane life of ordinary people is to acquire, or profit, money, and among the nobles, in addition, to receive honors, distinctions and other awards for state services. The acquisition of the Spirit of God is also capital, but only gracious and eternal ... "

Seraphim of Sarov is a saint close to us in time, who is important for Christians in that he actually brings people back to the days of the birth of monasticism, to the times Venerable Anthony and Pachomius the Great and Simeon the Stylite.

In many of the monastic deeds of the Monk Seraphim, our contemporaries reveal a striking fact: he repeated what was inherent only in the era of ancient Christianity, repeated the seemingly unique feats of the very first monks. But the most important thing for the world is that he was able to express in modern language what people become monks for. Moreover, for the sake of what people become Christians.

His most famous words, addressed to all Christians: "Acquire the spirit of peace and thousands around you will be saved" is now probably known to every Orthodox person. In other words, the goal of the Christian life is, already living here on earth, to settle in Heaven with your heart and show this Heaven to others ...

The Monk Seraphim set an example of such a life by personal example, first of all. But, at the same time, he did not get tired of talking about it. One of his conversations was documented by his interlocutor, landowner Nikolai Alexandrovich Motovilov.

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

N. A. Motovilov

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

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

So, the Lord uses all his divine means in order to give such a person the opportunity for his good deeds, and he will not lose the reward in the life of the Divine Life. But for this it is necessary to start here with the right faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world of sinners to save ... But this is what limits this pleasure to God of good deeds that are not done for Christ's sake: our Creator gives the means for their implementation. It remains for a person to either implement them or not. That is why the Lord said to the Jews: if they had not seen it faster, they had no quicker sin. Now speak, we see, and your sin remains on you. Take advantage of a man, like Cornelius, the pleasure of God of his work, not done for Christ's sake, and believing in His Son, then this kind of work will be imputed to him, as if done for Christ's sake and only for faith in Him. Otherwise, a person has no right to complain that his good did not go into business. This never happens only when doing some kind of good for Christ's sake, for good, for His sake, is done, not only in the life of the next century, the crown of righteousness intercedes, 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 Holy Spirit, the Father loves the Son and gives everything in His hand.

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

“Acquisition is the same as acquisition,” he answered me, “after all, you understand what acquiring money means. So it is all the same the acquisition of the Spirit of God. After all, you, your Love for God, understand what acquisition is in the worldly sense? The purpose of the mundane life of ordinary people is to acquire, or profit, money, and among the nobles, in addition, to receive honors, distinctions and other awards for state services. The acquisition of the Spirit of God is also capital, but only grace-filled and eternal ... God the Word, our Lord God-Man Jesus Christ, likens our life to a marketplace and calls our work of life on earth purchase, and says to all of us: bathe, never come, redeeming time, like days Cunning the essence, that is, gain time to receive heavenly goods through earthly goods. Earthly goods are virtues done for Christ's sake, giving us the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, when the foolish fools lacked oil, it is said: go buy it at the marketplace. But when they bought, the doors to the bridal chamber were already closed, and they could not enter it. Some say that the lack of oil among the holy fools signifies a lack of good deeds in their lifetime. This understanding is not entirely correct. What was it they lacked in good deeds, when they, though fools, are still called virgins? After all, virginity is the highest virtue, as a state of equal angels, and could serve as a substitute in itself for all other virtues. I, poor man, think that it was precisely the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God that was lacking. Creating virtues, these virgins, out of spiritual folly, assumed that this was only a Christian thing to do some virtues. We did virtue, and thus did the work of God, and before they received the grace of the Spirit of God, whether they achieved it, they did not care. With such and such ways of life, based only on one creation of virtues without careful testing, whether they bring and exactly how much they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, and it is said in the fatherly books: there is no way, think to be good at the beginning, but its end is at the bottom hellish. Anthony the Great, in his letters to the monks, says about such virgins: “Many monks and virgins have no idea about the differences in wills operating in a person, and they do not know that three wills are at work in us: the 1st is God's, all-perfect and all-saving ; 2nd - own, human, that is, if not harmful, then not saving; 3rd - demonic - quite pernicious. And this is the third - the enemy's will - and teaches a person either not to do any virtues, or to do them out of vanity, or for one good, and not for the sake of Christ. The second is that our own will teaches us to delight our lusts, or even, as the enemy teaches, to do good for the sake of good, not paying attention to the grace he receives. The first, the will of God and all-saving, consists only in doing good only for the Holy Spirit ... This is precisely the oil in the lamps of the wise virgins, which could burn lightly and for a long time, and those virgins with these burning lamps could wait for the Bridegroom. who came in 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, and buy oil, did not have time to return in time, for the doors were already closed. Marketplace is our life; the doors of the bridal chamber, closed and not allowing access to the Bridegroom, is human death; the wise and foolish virgins are Christian souls; oil is not deeds, but the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God received through them inside our nature, 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 like cattle and beasts, - to the temple of the Divine, the luminous palace of eternal joy in Christ Jesus our Lord, Creator and Deliverer and Eternal Bridegroom of our souls. How great is God's compassion for our misfortune, that is, inattention to His concern for extinguished, when God says: Behold, I stand at the door and sense! Oh, how I wish, your Love for God, that in this life you would always be in the Spirit of God! In what I find, in that I judge, says the Lord. Woe, great woe, if He finds us burdened with care 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, do not enter into an attack, that is, do not lose the Spirit of God, for vigilance and prayer brings us His grace. Of course, every virtue done for Christ's sake gives the grace of the Holy Spirit, but most of all it gives prayer, because it is always in our hands, as an instrument for acquiring the grace of the Spirit ... There is always an opportunity for everyone ... How great is the power of prayer even for a sinner a person, when she ascends with all her heart, judge by the following example of Holy Tradition: when, at the request of a desperate mother, who has lost her only-begotten son, abducted by death, a whore wife, caught on her way, grieving mother, cried to the Lord: “Not for the sake of the accursed sinner, but tears for the sake of a mother who grieves over her son and firmly believed in Your mercy and omnipotence, Christ God, resurrect, Lord, her son! ”- and the Lord raised him up. So, your love for God, the power of prayer is great, and it most of all 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 about, father, to be with other virtues, done for Christ's sake, in order to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit? After all, you will only speak to me about prayer?

- Acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit and all others of Christ for the sake of virtues, trade them spiritually, trade those of them that give you great profits. Collect the capital of the blessed excess of the grace of God, put them in the eternal pawnshop of God from the percentage of immaterial ... For example: prayer and vigilance gives you more of the grace of God, watch and pray; Fasting gives much of the Spirit of God, fast, alms give more, do alms, and thus judge about every virtue done for Christ's sake. Here I will tell you about myself, poor Seraphim. I come from Kursk merchants. So, when I was not yet in the monastery, we used to trade in goods, which gives us more profit. Do the same you, father, do, and, as in the trade business, it is not the power to trade more, but to get more profit, so in the Christian life it is not the power to just pray or whatever. -or a good deed to do. Although the apostle says, pray incessantly, but why, as you remember, he adds: I would rather speak five words with my mind than a thousand with my tongue. And the Lord says: not everyone speaks 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 is cursed who does the work of God with negligence. And the work of God is: let him believe in God and He also sent Jesus Christ. If we judge correctly about the commandments of Christ and the apostles, then our Christian work consists not in increasing the count of good deeds that serve the goal of our Christian life only by means, but in extracting more benefit from them, that is, in obtaining the most abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit.

So I wish, your Love for God, that you yourself would acquire this ever-inexhaustible source of the grace of God and always reason to 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: even now - to the terrible judgment of Christ! For in what I find, in that I judge. If not, then it is necessary to understand why and for what reason the Lord God the Holy Spirit has deigned to leave us, and again seek and seek Him ... Our enemies who drive us away from Him must be attacked so long as their dust is swept away, as the prophet said. David…

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

… We have become very inattentive to the work of our salvation, which is why it turns out that we accept many words of Holy Scripture not in the sense that we should have. And this is all because we do not seek the grace of God, we do not allow it, due to the pride of our mind, to dwell in our souls, and therefore we do not have true enlightenment from the Lord, sent to the hearts of people who are hungry and thirsty for the righteousness of God with all their hearts. Here, for example: many interpret that when the Bible says - God breathed in the breath of life in the person of the primordial Adam and created by Him from the dust of the earth, as if before that there was no human soul and spirit, but as if there was only one flesh, created from earthly dust.

This interpretation is incorrect, for the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the earth in the same composition as the holy Apostle Paul asserts that your spirit, soul and flesh may be all-perfect at the coming of our Jesus Christ. And all these three 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 living creatures on earth, animated by God's creatures. But here is the power, what if the Lord God had not breathed in then this breath of life into his face. that is, the grace of the Lord God the Holy Spirit from the Father who proceeds and in the Son who honors and for the sake of the Son is sent into the world, then Adam, no matter how perfectly he was created over other God's creatures, as the crown of creation on earth, still would have remained indigent within himself The Holy Spirit, elevating him to a God-like dignity, and would be like all other creatures, although they have flesh, and soul, and spirit, belonging to each by kind, but the Holy Spirit within themselves to those who have not. When the Lord God breathed in the face of Adam the breath of life, then, in the words of Moses, Adam also became a living soul, that is, in everything, similar to God, like Him, immortal for centuries and centuries. Adam was created not subject to action from any of the elements created by God, he was neither drowned by water, nor fire burned, nor the earth could devour in its chasms, nor the air could damage by any of its actions. Everything was subdued to him, as a favorite of God, as a king and owner of creation ...

The same wisdom, and strength, and omnipotence and all the other good and holy qualities the Lord God gave to Eve, having created her not from the dust of the earth, but from the rib of Adam in the paradise planted by Him in the middle of the earth. In order to comfortably and always maintain in oneself the immortal, God-gracious and all-perfect properties of this breath of life, God planted in the middle of paradise the tree of life, in the fruits of which he enclosed all the essence and fullness of the gifts of this Divine breath of His. If they had not sinned, then Adam and Eve themselves and all their offspring could always, using the eating of 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 to our imagination is currently confusing.

When we eat of 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 underwent all the disasters that followed the transgression of the commandment of God, then we lost this priceless gift of the grace of the Spirit of God, so that until the very coming of the God-man into the world Jesus Christ the Spirit of God is not in the world, as Jesus is not glorified ...

When He, our Lord Christ, deigned to complete the whole work of salvation, then after His resurrection, He breathed on the apostles, resuming the breath of the life lost by Adam, and bestowed upon them the same grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. But this is not enough - after all, He said to them: they have no food, 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 their teaching into all truth and will remember them all , but He spoke to them while still being in peace with him. This has already been promised by Him grace-grace. And so on the day of Pentecost He solemnly sent down the Holy Spirit to them in a stormy breath, in the form of tongues of fire, on each of them who sat down and entered into them, and filled them with the power of fiery Divine grace, breathing dewy and joyfully acting in souls who partake 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 anointed with chrismation in the most important places of our flesh indicated by the holy Church, as the eternal guardian of this grace. It is said: the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. And on what, father, your love of God, do we, the poor, put our seals, if not on the vessels that store some precious precious thing for us? What can be higher than everything 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 a heretic person will not be taken away until his death, that is, until the time indicated from above according to Providence God for a lifelong probation of man on earth - what he will be fit for and what he will be able to accomplish in this God-given period through the mediation of the power of grace given to him from above.

And if we never sinned after our baptism, we would forever remain holy, blameless, and saints of God, taken away from all defilement of the flesh and spirit. But the trouble is that, when we succeed in age, we do not succeed in grace and in the mind of God, as our Lord Christ Jesus did in that, but on the contrary, being corrupted little by little, we are deprived of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God and we become in many different ways by sinful people. But when someone, being agitated by the wisdom of God seeking our salvation, bypassing every kind, decides for her sake to matins to God and vigil for the sake of gaining his eternal salvation, then he obedient to her voice must resort to the true repentance in all his sins and the creation of the opposite of the sins committed virtues, and through the virtues of Christ for the sake of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, acting within us and within us arranging the Kingdom of God.

Although the enemy, the devil, deceived Eve, and Adam fell with her, but the Lord not only gave them the Redeemer in the fruit of the seed of the Woman who corrected death by death, but also gave all of us in the Woman, the Ever-Virgin Mary of the Mother of God, eradicating in Herself and erasing in everything to the human race, the head of the serpent, the persistent Intercessor to His Son and our God, the unashamed and invincible Representative even for the most desperate sinners. For this very reason, the Mother of God is called the Ulcer 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 must, poor Seraphim, explain the difference between the actions of the Holy Spirit, who sacredly dwells in the hearts of believers in the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and the actions of sinful darkness, to extinguish and incite the demonic thieves in us. ... The Spirit of God remembers to us the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and acts as one with Him, always identically, rejoicing our hearts and directing our feet into the path of peace, but the flattering, demonic spirit, contrary to Christ, is wise, and his actions in us are rebellious, feet and full of lust fleshly, lust of hair and pride of life. 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 his rightful faith in Christ, if through human weakness and died 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 gives grace-to give grace. It is about this grace, manifested to the whole world and our human race in the God-Man, and it is said in the Gospel: in that belly is the belly and the belly is the light of man, and it is added: and the light shines in darkness and His darkness does not embrace. This means that the grace of the Holy Spirit, given at baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, despite the human falls, 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 unrepentant repentance, speaks to the Father: Abba Father! Do not be completely angry at this impenitence! And then, when the sinner turns to the path of repentance, he completely obliterates the traces of the crimes committed, dressing the former criminal again with incorruptible clothing woven from the grace of the Holy Spirit, about the acquisition of which, as the goal of Christian life, I have been talking for so long to your Love of God ...

- How is it, - I asked Father Seraphim, - to know that I am in the grace of the Holy Spirit?

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

I answered:
- Still, I do not understand why I can be firmly convinced that I am in the Spirit of God. How can I recognize His true manifestation in myself?

Father Father Seraphim answered:
- I already, your love for God, have told you in detail how people are in the Spirit of God ... What do you want, father?
“It’s necessary,” I said, “so that I understand this well! ..

Then Father Seraphim took me very tightly by the shoulders and said to me:
- We are both now, father, in the Spirit of God with you! .. Why are you not looking at me?
I answered:
- I can't, father, look, because lightning is pouring from your eyes. Your face has become brighter than the sun, and my eyes ache 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 have been able to see me like that.
And bowing his head to me, he quietly said to me in my ear:

- Thank the Lord God for His unspoken mercy to you. You saw that only in my heart I said to the Lord God and inside myself: Lord! Grant him, and with bodily eyes, to see the descent of Thy Spirit, with which Thou art worthy of Thy servants, when Thou deign to appear in the light of Thy glorious glory! And so, father, the Lord instantly fulfilled the humble request of the wretched Seraphim ... How can we not thank Him for this ineffable gift to both of us! That way, father, the Lord does not always show His mercy to the great hermits. It was the grace of God who was pleased to comfort 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? Look simply and do not be afraid - the Lord is with us! After these words I looked into his face, and an even greater awe-inspiring horror fell upon me. Imagine, in the middle of the sun, in the brightest 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 you don’t see these hands, you don’t see either yourself or his figure, but only one blinding light, stretching far, several fathoms in a circle, and illuminating with its bright shine both the snow veil covering the clearing, and the snow pellet, which showered me and the great old man from above ...

- What do you feel now? - Father Seraphim asked me.
- Unusually good! - I said.
- How good is it? 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: I give you my peace, not as peace gives, I give you. If you were faster from the world, the world loved its own, but as if you were elected from the world, for this sake the world hates you. Lots of dare, as Az will conquer the world. It is to these people, who are hated from this world, who are chosen by the Lord that peace that you now feel in yourself; the world, according to the apostolic word, is every mind prevailing. This is what the apostle calls him, because no word can express the well-being of the soul that he produces in those people in whose hearts the Lord God instills him. Christ the Savior calls it the world from His own bounty, and not from this world, for no temporary earthly well-being can give it to the human heart: it is given from above from the Lord God Himself, therefore it is called the peace of God ... What else do you feel? - Father Seraphim asked me.

- Unusual sweetness! - I said.
And he continued:
This is the sweetness about which it is said in the Holy Scriptures: from fatness to your house they will drink and drink me with a stream of your sweetness. It is this sweetness that now fills our hearts and spreads through all our veins with our ineffable delight. From this sweetness our hearts seem to melt, and we are both filled with such bliss, which cannot be expressed in any language ... What else do you feel?

- An extraordinary joy in all my heart!
And Father Seraphim continued:
- When the Spirit of God descends on a person and overshadows him completely with His inspiration, then the human soul is filled with inexpressible joy, for the Spirit of God joyfully creates everything, no matter what He touches. This is the very joy about which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: a wife always gives birth, grief has, as if her year is coming: when she gives birth to a child, then she does not remember sorrow for joy, as if a person will be 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, it is nevertheless insignificant in comparison with that about which the Lord Himself through the lips of His Apostle said that that joy is neither an eye, nor an ear. in a man's heart he did not seek good, God has prepared even more for those who love Him. The preconditions of this joy are given to us now, and if they make it so sweet, good and cheerful in our souls, then what can we say about the joy that is in store for us, in heaven, crying here on earth? Here you too, father, have wept quite enough in your life on earth, and look, with what joy the Lord consoles you even in this life. Now it is ours, father, to work, work to work, applying to us, to ascend from strength to strength and reach the measure of the age of fulfillment of Christ ... What else do you feel, your love of God?

I said:
- Extraordinary warmth!
- How, father, warmth? Why, we are sitting in the forest. Now it's winter in the yard, and there is snow under our feet, and there is more snow on us, and the croup from above is falling ... what kind of warmth can there be?
I answered:
- And the kind that happens in the bath, when they put it on the stove and when steam is pouring out of it in a column ...
- And the smell, - he asked me, - the same as from the bath?
- No, - I answered, - there is nothing on earth like this fragrance ...
And Father Seraphim, smiling pleasantly, said:

- And I myself, father, I know this in the same way as you, but on purpose I ask you - do you feel it? The absolute truth, your love of God. No sweetness of 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 things can be like him! .. Notice, your love for God, because you told me that it is warm around us, like in a bathhouse, but look: after all, neither you nor me the snow melts and under us, too ... Therefore, this warmth is not in the air, but in ourselves. It is precisely that warmth about which the Holy Spirit with the words of prayer makes us cry to the Lord: warm me with the warmth of the Holy Spirit! She was warmed by her, 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 be in reality, because thanks to 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 inside you and be, and the grace of the Holy Spirit both shines from the outside, and warms us, and, filling the air around us with a multifaceted fragrance, delights our senses with despicable delight, filling our hearts with unspeakable joy.

Our present situation is the same about which the Apostle spoke: the kingdom of God does not contain food and drink, but truth and peace about Holy Dus. Our faith does not consist in words that are beyond earthly wisdom, but in the manifestation of strength and spirit. It is in this state that we are now with you. It is about this state that the Lord said: the essence is not from those who stand here, who do not have a taste of death, they still see the kingdom of God, which has come 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 to remember me forever, as vividly and clearly as I now feel, this mercy of God.

- And I think, - 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 anticipated so soon to listen to the poor Seraphim, especially since not for you alone it was given to you to understand this, but through you for the whole world, so that you yourself, having been established in the work of God, could be useful to others ... God is required to have the right faith in Him and His Only Begotten Son. For this, the grace of the Holy Spirit is abundantly given from above. The Lord seeks 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 all the rest I myself will apply 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, Bo your heavenly Father, as you demand all your strength.

The Lord God does not reproach for the use of earthly goods, for He Himself says that according to our provisions in earthly life we demand all our strength, that is, everything that calms our human life on earth and makes our way to the heavenly fatherland convenient and easier ... And The Holy Church that this should be given to us by the Lord God; and although sorrows, misfortunes are varied and inseparable from our life on earth, yet the Lord God did not want and does not want us to be through the apostles to bear each other's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. The Lord Jesus personally gives us a commandment that we love each other and, consoling with this mutual love, make it easier for ourselves the sad and narrow path of our walking towards the heavenly fatherland. Why did He come down to us from heaven, if not in order to take our poverty upon Himself and enrich us with the riches of His goodness and His unspeakable bounties? After all, He did not come to serve Him, but let Himself serve others and give His soul for the deliverance of many. Likewise, you, your Love for God, do and, having seen the grace of God clearly shown to you, report this to everyone who desires salvation for himself. There is a lot of harvest, - says the Lord, - but there are few workers ... So the Lord God brought us to work and gave the gifts of His grace, so that, reaping the classes of salvation of our neighbors through the multiplying number of those brought by us into the kingdom of God, they would bring Him fruits - about thirty, ovo sixty, ovo one hundred.

Let us look after ourselves, father, so as not to be condemned to us 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 their Lord one instead of two - four, the other instead of five - ten. There is nothing to doubt about the mercy of the Lord God. Yourself, 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 cut me down and at your mouth is your salvation ...

Isn't our Lord Jesus Christ even more wondrous than this about those who believe in Him: believing in Me, I do not do things just like I do, but will do more than these, as I am going to My Father and pray to Him for you, so that your joy will be filled. Until now, do not bring anything in the name of Me, now ask and accept ... So, your Love for God, whatever you ask the Lord God for, you take 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 a neighbor to His glory, therefore He says: all, even to the one who was the least of these who created Him, create Me. So do not have any doubt that the Lord God will not fulfill your requests, as long as they are either in the glory of God, or to the benefit and edification of neighbors. But even if for your own need, or benefit, or profit you needed something, and even so quickly and obediently the Lord God will send you, if only this is an urgent need and necessity, for the Lord loves Those who love Him: the Lord is good to all, and His compassion in all His works; but He will do the will of those who fear Him, and he will hear their prayer, and fulfill all their counsel; the Lord will fulfill all your petitions. However, beware, your Love of God, lest you ask the Lord, which you will not have an urgent need. The Lord will not deny you even that for your Orthodox faith in Christ the Savior, for the Lord will not betray the rod of the righteous and will unswervingly do the will of His servant, but he will exact from him why he disturbed Him unnecessarily, asked Him for what without which he could very convenient to dispense with.

And throughout this conversation, from the very time when Father Seraphim's face brightened up, this vision did not stop ... The inexpressible shining of light emanating from him I saw myself, with my own eyes, which I am ready to confirm with an oath.

CONVERSATION OF THE ST. SERAFIM OF SAROV ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF CHRISTIAN LIFE WITH THE SIMBIR PROVIDER AND CONSCIOUS JUDGE NIKOLAI ALEXANDROVICH MOTOVILOV

(From the handwritten memoirs of N.A. Motovilov)

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do, and he will do more than these ...

“Once,” Motovilov writes in his notes, “it was in the Sarov Hermitage, shortly after my healing, at the beginning of the winter of 1831, on Tuesday the end of November, I stood during Vespers in the warm Cathedral of the Life-Giving Spring on an ordinary it used to be, in my place, right opposite the miraculous icon of the Mother of God. ”Then one of the sisters of the Diveyevo Mill community came up to me. I had no idea about the name and existence of this community, separate from another church, also Diveyevo community, at that time. to me:

Are you, perhaps, a lame gentleman whom our father, Father Seraphim, healed just recently? I replied that it was me who was.

Well, so, - she said, - go to the priest - he ordered to call you to him. He is now in his cell in the monastery, and said that he would be waiting for you.

People who, at least once during the life of the great elder Seraphim, who were in the Sarov desert and even only heard about him, can fully comprehend what inexplicable joy my soul was filled with at this unexpected call of him. Leaving the hearing of the Divine service, I immediately ran to him, to his cell. Father Seraphim met me at the very door of his vestibule and said to me:

I was waiting for your love of God! Just wait a little while I talk to my orphans. I have a lot to talk with you. Sit down here!

At these words, he pointed out to me a ladder with steps, made, probably, to close the chimneys of the stove and placed opposite the stove, with its mouth in the vestibule, as in all double cells of the Sarovs, arranged. I was about to sit down on the bottom step, but he said to me:

No, sit higher!

I switched to the second one, but he told me:

No, your love of God! If you please sit on the topmost step. - And, having made me sit down, he added:

Well, here, sit here and wait, when I, having talked with my orphans, come out to you.

Batiushka brought two sisters into his cell, one of whom was a girl from the nobility, the sister of the Nizhny Novgorod landowner Manturov, Elena Vasilievna, as the sisters who remained with me in senets told me to my request.

For a long time I sat waiting for the great old man to open the door for me too. I think I sat there for two hours. Seraphim's cell attendant, Pavel, came out to me from another cell closest to the entrance to the vestibule of this cell, and, despite my excuses, persuaded me to visit his cell and began to give me various instructions on spiritual life, which in fact had a goal, at the instigation of the enemy, weaken my love and faith in the merits of the great elder Seraphim before God.

I felt sad, and with sorrow I said to him:

I was stupid, Father Paul, that, having obeyed your convictions, I entered your cell. Father Abbot, Niphont is a great servant of God, but even here I did not come to the Sarov Monastery for him and I do come, although I respect him very much for his shrine, but only for Father Seraphim alone, about whom I think that in of antiquity there were few such holy saints of God, endowed with the power of Elijah and Moses. Who are you who are imposing on me with your instructions, while, I guess, you don't even know the way of God yourself. Forgive me - I am sorry that I listened to you and went to your cell.

With that, I left him and sat down again on the top step of the ladder in the senses of my father's cell. Then I heard from the same Father Paul that the priest reprimanded him for this, saying to him: "It is not your business to talk with those who crave words for the poor Seraphim and come to him in Sarov. And I myself, poor man, are not theirs. I say, but what the Lord has deigned me to open for edification. Do not interfere with your own affairs. Know yourself, and never dare to teach anyone; God did not give you this gift - after all, it is not given to people for nothing, but for their merits before the Lord our God and by His special mercy and Divine look on people and His Holy Providence. " I am writing this here for the memory and edification of those who value both a little speech and a barely noticeable character trait of the great Elder Seraphim.

Conversation of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov with Nikolai Motovilov about the acquisition of the Holy Spirit (useful reading) The conversation of the Monk Seraphim with Nikolai Alexandrovich 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. The seeming simplicity of the conversation is deceiving: the teachings are delivered by one of the greatest saints of the Russian Church, and the listener is the future ascetic of the faith, healed through the prayer of Seraphim from an incurable disease. It was N.A. Before his death, the Monk Seraphim bequeathed to Motovilov the material cares for his orphans from Diveyevo, about the founding of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery.

It was on Thursday. The day was overcast. There was a quarter of snow on the ground, and a rather thick snow pellet was crushed from above, when Father Seraphim began a conversation with me on a nearby meadow of his hay field, near his nearest wilderness opposite the Sarovka river, near a mountain that comes close to its banks. He placed me on the stump of a tree he had just cut down, and he himself squatted against me. - The Lord revealed to me, - said the great elder, - that in your childishness you zealously wanted to know what the purpose of our Christian life is, and you have repeatedly asked many great spiritual persons about this ... I must say here that since 12 -years old, this thought persistently worried me, and I really addressed 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, “didn’t tell you that definitely. They told you: go to church, pray to God, do the commandments of God, do good - this is the goal of Christian life for you. And some were even indignant at you because you were busy with not godly curiosity, and told you: do not seek higher yourself. But they didn’t speak as they should. Here I, poor Seraphim, will explain to you now what this goal really is. Prayer, fasting, vigilance and all other Christian deeds, no matter how good they are in themselves, but doing only them is the goal of our Christian life, although they serve as the necessary means to achieve it. The true goal of our Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God. Fasting, and vigilance and prayer, and alms, and every good deed done for Christ's sake are the means for acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. Note, father, that a good deed done only for Christ's sake brings us the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Yet, for Christ's sake, what is done, although good, does not represent a reward in the life of the century to come, and in this life it does not give the grace of God either. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said: everyone who does not gather with Me, he scatters. A good deed cannot be called otherwise than gathering, for although it is not done for Christ's sake, it is nevertheless good. Scripture says: fear God in every tongue and do righteousness, it is pleasing to Him. And, as we see from the sacred narrative, this do the righteousness is so pleasing to God that to Cornelius the centurion, who feared God and did righteousness, an angel of the Lord appeared during his prayer and said: send to Joppa to Simon Usmar, there you have found Peter and that one speaks the verbs of the eternal life, in them you and your whole house will be saved. So, the Lord uses all his divine means in order to give such a person the opportunity for his good deeds, and he will not lose the reward in the life of the Divine Life. But for this it is necessary to begin here with the right faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to save sinful people ... But this is what limits this pleasure to God of good deeds that are not done for Christ's sake: our Creator provides the means for their implementation. It remains for a person to either implement them or not. That is why the Lord said to the Jews: if they had not seen it faster, they had no quicker sin. Now speak, we see, and your sin remains on you. Take advantage of a man, like Cornelius, the pleasure of God of his work, not done for Christ's sake, and believing in His Son, then this kind of work will be imputed to him, as if done for Christ's sake and only for faith in Him. Otherwise, a person has no right to complain that his good did not go into business. This never happens only when doing some kind of good for Christ's sake, for good, for His sake, is done, not only in the life of the next century, the crown of righteousness intercedes, 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 Holy Spirit, the Father loves the Son and gives everything in His hand. So it is, your love of God! Thus, the true goal of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of this Spirit of God, and prayer, vigil, fasting, alms and other virtues for Christ's sake are only means to acquire 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, “after all, you understand what acquiring money means. So it is all the same the acquisition of the Spirit of God. After all, you, your Love for God, understand what acquisition is in the worldly sense? The purpose of the mundane life of ordinary people is to acquire, or profit, money, and among the nobles, in addition, to receive honors, distinctions and other awards for state services. The acquisition of the Spirit of God is also capital, but only gracious and eternal ... God the Word, our Lord our God-man Jesus Christ, likens our life to a marketplace and calls our work of life on earth purchase, and says to all of us: bathe, never come, redeeming time, as if the days are deceiving the essence, that is, gain time to receive heavenly goods through earthly goods. Earthly goods are virtues done for Christ's sake, giving us the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, when the foolish fools lacked oil, it is said: go buy it at the marketplace. But when they bought, the doors to the bridal chamber were already closed, and they could not enter it. Some say that the lack of oil among the holy fools signifies a lack of good deeds in their lifetime. This understanding is not entirely correct. What was it they lacked in good deeds, when they, though fools, are still called virgins? After all, virginity is the highest virtue, as a state of equal angels, and could serve as a substitute in itself for all other virtues. I, poor man, think that it was precisely the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God that was lacking. Creating virtues, these virgins, out of spiritual folly, assumed that this was only a Christian thing to do some virtues. We did virtue, and thus did the work of God, and before they received the grace of the Spirit of God, whether they achieved it, they did not care. With such and such ways of life, based only on one creation of virtues without careful testing, whether they bring and exactly how much they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, and it is said in fatherly books: there is no way, think to be good at the beginning, but its end is at the bottom hellish. Anthony the Great, in his letters to the monks, says about such virgins: "Many monks and virgins have no idea about the differences in the wills operating in a person, and they do not know that three wills are at work in us: 1st - God's, all-perfect and all-saving ; 2nd - his own, human, that is, if not harmful, then not saving; 3rd - demonic - completely harmful. And this is the third - the enemy's will - and teaches a person either not to do any virtues, or to do them out of vanity, or for one good, and not for the sake of Christ. The second - our own will teaches us to delight our lusts, or even, as the enemy teaches, to do good for the good, not paying attention to the grace they acquire. the will of God and all-saving is only to do good only for the Holy Spirit ... This is precisely the oil in the lamps of the wise virgins, which could burn lightly and for a long time, and those virgins with these burning they could wait for the Bridegroom with lamps. in the 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, and buy oil, did not have time to return in time, for the doors were already closed. Marketplace is our life; the doors of the bridal chamber, closed and not allowing access to the Bridegroom, is human death; the wise and foolish virgins are Christian souls; oil is not deeds, but the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God received through them inside our nature, 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 like cattle and beasts, - to the temple of the Divine, the luminous palace of eternal joy in Christ Jesus our Lord, Creator and Deliverer and Eternal Bridegroom of our souls. How great is God's compassion for our misfortune, that is, inattention to His concern for extinguished, when God says: Behold, I stand at the door and sense! Oh, how I wish, your Love for God, that in this life you would always be in the Spirit of God! In what I find, in that I judge, says the Lord. Woe, great woe, if He finds us burdened with care 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, do not enter into an attack, that is, do not lose the Spirit of God, for vigilance and prayer brings us His grace. Of course, every virtue done for Christ's sake gives the grace of the Holy Spirit, but above all it gives prayer, because it is always in our hands, as an instrument for acquiring the grace of the Spirit ... There is always an opportunity for everyone ... How great is power prayers of even a sinful person, when she ascends with all my heart, judge by the following example of Holy Tradition: when, at the request of a desperate mother, who has lost her only-begotten son, abducted by death, a whore wife, who got in her way and even from a recent sin is not purified, touched by the desperate sorrow of her mother, cried out to the Lord: "Not for the sake of the accursed sinner, but tears for the sake of a mother grieving for her son and firmly believing in Your mercy and omnipotence, Christ God, resurrect, Lord, her son!" - and the Lord raised him up. So, your love for God, the power of prayer is great, and it most of all brings the Spirit of God, and it is most convenient for everyone to correct it. We will be blessed when the Lord God finds us vigilant, in the fullness of the gifts of His Holy Spirit! .. - Well, how, father, to be with other virtues, done for Christ's sake, in order to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit? After all, you will only speak to me about prayer? - Acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit and all others of Christ for the sake of virtues, trade them spiritually, trade those of them that give you great profits. Collect the capital of the blessed excess of the grace of God, put them in the eternal pawnshop of God from the percentage of immaterial ... For example: prayer and vigilance gives you more of the grace of God, watch and pray; Fasting gives much of the Spirit of God, fast, alms give more, do alms, and thus judge about every virtue done for Christ's sake. Here I will tell you about myself, poor Seraphim. I come from Kursk merchants. So, when I was not yet in the monastery, we used to trade in goods, which gives us more profit. Do the same you, father, do, and, as in the trade business, it is not the power to trade more, but to get more profit, so in the Christian life it is not the power to just pray or whatever. -or a good deed to do. Although the apostle says, pray incessantly, but why, as you remember, he adds: I would rather speak five words with my mind than a thousand with my tongue. And the Lord says: not everyone speaks 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 is cursed who does the work of God with negligence. And the work of God is: let him believe in God and He also sent Jesus Christ. If we judge correctly about the commandments of Christ and the apostles, then our Christian work consists not in increasing the count of good deeds that serve the goal of our Christian life only by means, but in extracting more benefit from them, that is, in obtaining the most abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit. So I wish, your Love for God, that you yourself would acquire this ever-inexhaustible source of the grace of God and always reason to 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: even now - to the terrible judgment of Christ! For in what I find, in that I judge. If not, then it is necessary to understand 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 so long as their dust is swept away, as said the prophet David ... - Father, - I said, - so you all deign to speak about the acquisition of 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 seen? How will I know if He is with me or not? `` We are at the present time, '' the elder answered, because of our almost universal coldness towards the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and through our inattention to the actions of His Divine Providence for us and the communication of man with God, to the point that, one might say, we have almost completely retired from the truly Christian life ... ... We have become very much inattentive to the work of our salvation, which is why it turns out that many of the words of Holy Scripture are acceptable in the wrong sense. And this is all because we do not seek the grace of God, we do not allow it, due to the pride of our mind, to dwell in our souls, and therefore we do not have true enlightenment from the Lord, sent to the hearts of people who are hungry and thirsty for the righteousness of God with all their hearts. For example: many interpret that when the Bible says - God breathed in the breath of life in the person of the primordial Adam and created by Him from the dust of the earth, as if before that there was no human soul and spirit, but as if there was only one flesh, created from earthly dust. This interpretation is incorrect, for the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the earth in the same composition as the holy Apostle Paul asserts that your spirit, soul and flesh may be all-perfect at the coming of our Jesus Christ. And all these three 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 living creatures on earth, animated by God's creatures. But here is the power, what if the Lord God had not breathed in then this breath of life into his face. that is, the grace of the Lord God the Holy Spirit from the Father who proceeds and in the Son who honors and for the sake of the Son is sent into the world, then Adam, no matter how perfectly he was created over other God's creatures, as the crown of creation on earth, still would have remained indigent within himself The Holy Spirit, elevating him to a God-like dignity, and would be like all other creatures, although they have flesh, and soul, and spirit, belonging to each by kind, but the Holy Spirit within themselves to those who have not. When the Lord God breathed in the face of Adam the breath of life, then, in the words of Moses, Adam also became a living soul, that is, in everything, similar to God, like Him, immortal for centuries and centuries. Adam was created not subject to action from any of the elements created by God, he was neither drowned by water, nor fire burned, nor the earth could devour in its chasms, nor the air could damage by any of its actions. Everything was subdued to him, as a favorite of God, as a king and owner of creation ... The Lord God gave the same wisdom, and strength, and omnipotence and all the other good and holy qualities to Eve, creating her not from the dust of the earth, but from the rib of Adam in the paradise planted by Him in the midst of the earth. In order to comfortably and always maintain in oneself the immortal, God-gracious and all-perfect properties of this breath of life, God planted in the middle of paradise the tree of life, in the fruits of which he enclosed all the essence and fullness of the gifts of this Divine breath of His. If they had not sinned, then Adam and Eve themselves and all their offspring could always, using the eating of 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 to our imagination is currently confusing. When we eat of 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 underwent all the calamities that followed the transgression of the commandment of God, then we lost this priceless gift of the grace of the Spirit of God, so that until the very advent 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 whole work of salvation, then after His resurrection, He breathed on the apostles, resuming the breath of the 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 said to them: they have no food, 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 their teaching into all truth and will remember them all , but He spoke to them while still being in peace with him. This has already been promised by Him grace-grace. And so on the day of Pentecost He solemnly sent down the Holy Spirit to them in a stormy breath, in the form of tongues of fire, on each of them who sat down and entered into them, and filled them with the power of fiery Divine grace, breathing dewy and joyfully acting in souls who partake 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 anointed with chrismation in the most important places of our flesh indicated by the holy Church, as the eternal guardian of this grace. It is said: the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. And on what, father, your love of God, do we, the poor, put our seals, if not on the vessels that store some precious precious thing for us? What can be higher than everything 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 vital for a person that even a heretic person will not be taken away from him until his death, that is, until the period designated from above according to Providence God for a lifelong probation of man on earth - what he will be fit for and what he will be able to accomplish in this God-given period through the mediation of the power of grace given to him from above. And if we never sinned after our baptism, we would forever remain holy, blameless, and saints of God, taken away from all defilement of the flesh and spirit. But the trouble is that, when we succeed in age, we do not succeed in grace and in the mind of God, as our Lord Christ Jesus did in that, but on the contrary, being corrupted little by little, we are deprived of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God and we become in many different ways by sinful people. But when someone, being agitated by the wisdom of God seeking our salvation, bypassing every kind, decides for her sake to matins to God and vigil for the sake of gaining his eternal salvation, then he obedient to her voice must resort to the true repentance in all his sins and the creation of the opposite of the sins committed virtues, and through the virtues of Christ for the sake of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, acting within us and within us arranging the Kingdom of God.

It is not for nothing that the Word of God says: within you is the Kingdom of God, and the needy women rapture it. That is, those people who, in spite of the sinful bonds that bound 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 if your sins are like crimson, then as snow will make them white. So once the holy seer John the Theologian saw such people in white clothes, that is, clothes of justification, and dates in their hands, as a sign of victory, and they sang to God the wondrous song of Alleluia. No one can imitate the beauty of their singing. The Angel of God said about them: these are the essence, who came from great grief, who asked for the robe and whitened his robe in the Blood of the Lamb, - asking with suffering and making them clear in communion of the Most Pure and Life-giving Mysteries of the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb is innocent and Most Pure Christ, before all ages slain by His own will for the salvation of the world, which gives us our eternal and not scarce salvation and a replacement, every mind surpassing, that fruit of the tree of life, which our human race wanted to deprive of the human enemy of man, who fell from heaven Dennitsa. Although the enemy, the devil, deceived Eve, and Adam fell with her, but the Lord not only gave them the Redeemer in the fruit of the seed of the Woman who corrected death by death, but also gave all of us in the Woman, the Ever-Virgin Mary of the Mother of God, eradicating in Herself and erasing in everything to the human race, the head of the serpent, the persistent Intercessor to His Son and our God, the unashamed and invincible Representative even for the most desperate sinners. For this very reason, the Mother of God is called the Ulcer 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 must, poor Seraphim, explain the difference between the actions of the Holy Spirit, who sacredly dwells in the hearts of believers in the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and the actions of sinful darkness, to extinguish and incite the demonic thieves in us. ... The Spirit of God remembers to us the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and acts as one with Him, always identically, rejoicing our hearts and directing our feet into the path of peace, but the flattering, demonic spirit, contrary to Christ, is wise, and his actions in us are rebellious, feet and full of lust fleshly, lust of hair and pride of life. 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 his rightful faith in Christ, if through human weakness and died 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 gives grace-to give grace. It is about this grace, manifested to the whole world and our human race in the God-Man, and it is said in the Gospel: in that belly is the belly and the belly is the light of man, and it is added: and the light shines in darkness and His darkness does not embrace. This means that the grace of the Holy Spirit, given at baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, despite the human falls, 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 unrepentant repentance, speaks to the Father: Abba Father! Do not be completely angry at this impenitence! And then, when the sinner turns to the path of repentance, he completely obliterates the traces of the crimes committed, dressing the former criminal again with incorruptible clothes, woven from the grace of the Holy Spirit, about the acquisition of which, as the goal of Christian life, I have been talking for so long to your Love of God ... - How is it, - I asked Father Seraphim, - to know that I am in the grace of the Holy Spirit? - This, your love of God, is very simple! - he answered me. - That is why the Lord says: the whole essence is simple for those who acquire reason ... But our whole trouble is that we ourselves are not looking for this divine reason, which does not boast (does not take pride), for it is not of this world ... I answered: - Still, I do not understand why I can be firmly convinced that I am in the Spirit of God. How can I recognize His true manifestation in myself? Father Father Seraphim answered: - I already, your love for God, have told you in detail how people are in the Spirit of God ... What do you want, father? “It’s necessary,” I said, “so that I understand this well! .. Then Father Seraphim took me very tightly by the shoulders and said to me:“ We are both now, father, in the Spirit of God with you! .. Why are you not looking at me? I answered: - I cannot, father, look, because lightning is pouring from your eyes. Your face has become brighter than the sun, and my eyes ache with pain! .. Father Seraphim said: - Do not be afraid, your love of God! The willows themselves are now as bright as I am. You yourself are now in the fullness of the Spirit of God, otherwise you would not have been able to see me like that. And bowing his head to me, he quietly said to me in my ear: - Thank the Lord God for His unrepeatable mercy to you. You saw that only in my heart I said to the Lord God and inside myself: Lord! Grant him, and with bodily eyes, to see the descent of Thy Spirit, with which Thou art worthy of Thy servants, when Thou deign to appear in the light of Thy glorious glory! And so, father, the Lord instantly fulfilled the humble request of the wretched Seraphim. .. How can we not thank Him for this ineffable gift to both of us! That way, father, the Lord does not always show His mercy to the great hermits. It was the grace of God that was pleased to comfort your contrite heart, like a child-loving mother, through the intercession of the Mother of God Herself ... Well, father, don't look me in the eyes? Look simply and do not be afraid - the Lord is with us! After these words I looked into his face, and an even greater awe-inspiring horror fell upon me. Imagine, in the middle of the sun, in the brightest 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 you don’t see these hands, you don’t see either yourself or his figure, but only one blinding light, stretching far, several fathoms around, and illuminating with its bright shine both the snow veil covering the clearing, and the snow crumbs falling from above both me and the great old man ... - What do you feel now? - Father Seraphim asked me. - Unusually good! - I said. - How good is it? 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: I give you my peace, not as peace gives, I give you. If you were faster from the world, the world loved its own, but as if you were elected from the world, for this sake the world hates you. Lots of dare, as Az will conquer the world. It is to these people, who are hated from this world, who are chosen by the Lord that peace that you now feel in yourself; the world, according to the apostolic word, is every mind prevailing. This is what the apostle calls him, because no word can express the well-being of the soul that he produces in those people in whose hearts the Lord God instills him. Christ the Savior calls it peace from His own bounty, and not from this world, for no temporary earthly well-being can give it to the human heart: it is given from above from the Lord God Himself, and therefore is called the peace of God ... What else do you feel? - Father Seraphim asked me. - Unusual sweetness! - I said. And he continued: - This is the sweetness about which it is said in the Holy Scriptures: from fatness to your house they will be drunk and I have made me drink with a stream of your sweetness. It is this sweetness that now fills our hearts and spreads through all our veins with our ineffable delight. From this sweetness, our hearts seem to melt, and we are both filled with such bliss that no language can express. .. What else do you feel? - An extraordinary joy in all my heart! And Father Seraphim continued: - When the Spirit of God descends upon a person and completely overshadows him with His inspiration, then the human soul is filled with inexpressible joy, for the Spirit of God joyfully creates everything, no matter what He touches. This is the very joy about which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: a wife always gives birth, grief has, as if her year is coming: when she gives birth to a child, then she does not remember sorrow for joy, as if a person will be 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, it is nevertheless insignificant in comparison with that about which the Lord Himself through the lips of His Apostle said that that joy is neither an eye, nor an ear. in a man's heart he did not seek good, God has prepared even more for those who love Him. The preconditions of this joy are given to us now, and if they make it so sweet, good and cheerful in our souls, then what can we say about the joy that is in store for us, in heaven, crying here on earth? Here you too, father, have wept quite enough in your life on earth, and look, with what joy the Lord consoles you even in this life. Now it is ours, father, to work, work to work, applying to us, to ascend from strength to strength and reach the measure of the age of fulfillment of Christ ... What else do you feel, your love of God? I said: - Extraordinary warmth! - How, father, warmth? Why, we are sitting in the forest. Now it's winter in the yard, and there is snow under our feet, and there is more snow on us, and the croup from above is falling ... what kind of warmth can there be? I answered: - And the kind that happens in the bath, when they put it on the stove and when steam is pouring out of it in a column ... - And the smell, - he asked me, - is the same as from the bath? - No, - I answered, - on earth there is nothing like this fragrance ... And Father Seraphim, smiling pleasantly, said: is this how you feel? The absolute truth, your love of God. No sweetness of 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 things can be like him! .. Notice, your love for God, because you told me that it is warm around us, like in a bathhouse, but look: after all, neither you nor me the snow melts and under us, too ... Therefore, this warmth is not in the air, but in ourselves. It is precisely that warmth about which the Holy Spirit with the words of prayer makes us cry to the Lord: warm me with the warmth of the Holy Spirit! She was warmed by her, 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 be in reality, because thanks to 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 inside you and be, and the grace of the Holy Spirit both shines from the outside, and warms us, and, filling the air around us with a multifaceted fragrance, delights our senses with despicable delight, filling our hearts with unspeakable joy. Our present situation is the same about which the Apostle spoke: the kingdom of God does not contain food and drink, but truth and peace about Holy Dus. Our faith does not consist in words that are beyond earthly wisdom, but in the manifestation of strength and spirit. It is in this state that we are now with you. It is about this state that the Lord said: the essence is not from those who stand here, who do not have a taste of death, they still see the kingdom of God, which has come 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 to remember me forever, as vividly and clearly as I now feel, this mercy of God. - And I think, - 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 anticipated so soon to listen to the poor Seraphim, especially since not for you alone it was given to you to understand this, but through you for the whole world, so that you yourself, having been established in the work of God, can be useful to others ... God is required to have the right faith in Him and His Only Begotten Son. For this, the grace of the Holy Spirit is abundantly given from above. The Lord seeks 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 all the rest I myself will apply 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, Bo your heavenly Father, as you demand all your strength. The Lord God does not reproach for the use of earthly goods, for He Himself says that according to our provision in earthly life, we demand all strength, that is, everything that calms our human life on earth and makes our way to the heavenly fatherland convenient and easier. ..And the Holy Church that this should be given to us by the Lord God; and although sorrows, misfortunes are varied and inseparable from our life on earth, yet the Lord God did not want and does not want us to be through the apostles to bear each other's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. The Lord Jesus personally gives us a commandment that we love each other and, consoling with this mutual love, make it easier for ourselves the sad and narrow path of our walking towards the heavenly fatherland. Why did He come down to us from heaven, if not in order to take our poverty upon Himself and enrich us with the riches of His goodness and His unspeakable bounties? After all, He did not come to serve Him, but let Himself serve others and give His soul for the deliverance of many. Likewise, you, your Love for God, do and, having seen the grace of God clearly shown to you, report this to everyone who desires salvation for himself. There is a lot of harvest, - says the Lord, - you do little ... So the Lord God brought us to work and gave the gifts of His grace, so that, reaping the classes of salvation of our neighbors through the multiplicity of those brought by us into the kingdom of God, they would bring Him fruits - ovo thirty, ovo sixty, ovo one hundred. Let us take care of ourselves, father, so as not to be condemned to us 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 their Lord one instead of two - four, the other instead of five - ten. There is nothing to doubt about the mercy of the Lord God. Yourself, 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 cut me down and at your mouth is your salvation ... The Lord is near to all who call on Him in truth, and He has no sight on the face, 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 if the grain is upright, and both will move mountains. One moves a thousand, two darkness. The Lord Himself says: everything is possible for the believer, and Father Saint Paul exclaims: they can do everything about Christ who strengthens me. Isn't our Lord Jesus Christ even more wondrous than this about those who believe in Him: believing in Me, I do not do things just like I do, but will do more than these, as I am going to My Father and pray to Him for you, so that your joy will be filled. Until now, do not bring anything in the name of Me, but now ask and receive. .. So, your love for God, whatever you ask the Lord God for, you perceive everything, as long as it is for the glory of God or for the benefit of your neighbor, because He also refers to His glory as He says: All, even to the one of the least of these who have created, create for me. So do not have any doubt that the Lord God will not fulfill your requests, as long as they are either in the glory of God, or to the benefit and edification of neighbors. But even if for your own need, or benefit, or profit you needed something, and even so quickly and obediently the Lord God will send you, if only this is an urgent need and necessity, for the Lord loves Those who love Him: the Lord is good to all, and His compassion in all His works; but He will do the will of those who fear Him, and he will hear their prayer, and fulfill all their counsel; the Lord will fulfill all your petitions. However, beware, your Love of God, lest you ask the Lord, which you will not have an urgent need. The Lord will not deny you even that for your Orthodox faith in Christ the Savior, for the Lord will not betray the rod of the righteous and will unswervingly do the will of His servant, but he will exact from him why he disturbed Him unnecessarily, asked Him for what without which he could very convenient to dispense with. And throughout this conversation, from the very time when Father Seraphim's face brightened up, this vision did not stop ... The inexpressible blaze of light emanating from him I saw myself, with my own eyes, which I am ready to confirm with an oath.