O Lord, give me strength to face with serenity everything that this day will bring. Grant me to entrust myself fully to Your holy will. Every hour of this day teach me and support me. Whatever news I may receive during the day, teach me to accept it with peace of mind and with firm conviction that everything is according to Your holy will.

In all my words and actions guide my thoughts and feelings. In all unexpected events, do not let me forget that everything is sent by You.

Teach me to deal sincerely and wisely with every member of my family, bringing confusion or sorrow to none.
O Lord, give me strength to bear the weariness of the coming day and all the events of this day. Guide my will and teach me to pray, to believe, to hope, to endure, to forgive and to love. Amen.

Although God is invisible to our physical eyes, a sensitive heart feels His constant providence, His paternal love, His guiding and caring hand. God blesses us with sunshine and rain, and with different foods He feeds us.
By His will, mountains and valleys, seas and rivers, trees and rocks, birds and fish, earth and air, all serve us for our enjoyment.
His godly strength supports us continuously and protects our lives from evil and danger. In the words of an ancient writer, “In him we live and move and have our being.”
Every instant of our life is a gift from His never ending blessings, every breath we take is a gift of His fatherly goodwill, every beat of our heart is a deed of His gracious love and mercy.
So let us remind ourselves daily, and especially on Sundays, to thank our Creator and Savior.
This activity will be a marvelous medicine for our souls.
As a guidance for thanksgiving the following psalms might be useful: 8, 34, 66, 92, 96, 97, 103, 104, 146, 148, 149 and 150.

Every Christian has the power to heal infirmities-not of others, but his own, and not of the body, but of the soul-that is, sins and sinful habits-and to cast out devils, rejecting evil thoughts sown by them, and extinguishing the excitement of passions enflamed by them.

How wondrous everything is in the manifestation of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God, how everything reminds us of Her miraculous preservation of the human race!
She guards, as it were, all the entrances and exits of our life and is therefore called 'the Gracious Gatekeeper, opening the gates of paradise to all.' As if in a sign of this, She chose Her place beneath the gates of the Iveron monastery. So in Moscow, She guards, as it were, the entrances and exits of the Russian people, flocking from everywhere 'to the heart of Russia,' its capital city, Moscow."

O all-holy Virgin Mother of Christ, Queen of heaven and earth: Attend thou to the painful aspiration of our souls, and look down with mercy from thy holy height upon us who with love worship before thine all pure image. For, lo! engulfed by our sins and tempest-tossed by sorrows, gazing at thine image we offer thee our humble entreaties, as to one who liveth with us. For we have no other help, no other intercessor, nor any consolation, save thee, O Mother of all who sorrow and are heavy laden.
Help us who are weak; assuage our sorrow; direct us who are lost to the right path; heal and save the hopeless; grant that we may spend the remaining time of our life in peace and tranquility; bestow upon us a Christian end; and at the dread tribunal of thy Son show thyself to us as a merciful helper, that with all who have been pleasing unto God we may ever hymn, magnify and glorify thee as the good helper of the Christian race. Amen.

How needful it is for us to rise up more often to heaven if only in our thoughts, if only in the fiery desires of our hearts, to languish for heaven from whence man fell and weep for paradise lost!
One holy thought is followed by another, a multitude of them are stored up, and the soul filled with them will easily head for the heavenly heights without being held back. It is hard to climb a mountain that reaches into the heavens, but step-by-step, one can gradually and imperceptibly ascend without any particular labor, especially since the Lord gives ceaseless help and delight of heart to him who seeks Him, showing him what Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him (1 Cor. 2:9).

The Lord is able to strengthen your steps for further spiritual ascent, and give growth to the spiritual shoots that have begun to arise in your souls. May the prayers of the Holy Church that are often pronounced by the lips of a bishop be fulfilled on you: “Look down from heaven, O God, and behold, and visit this vine, and strengthen it, for Thy right hand has planted it.”

In the spiritual life something that is very good is explained wisely.
Ask for forgiveness at the proper time in order to reconcile your own soul and to give this opportunity to others as well.
It is not in vain written in the psalms: Seek peace and pursue it (Ps. 33:15).

Of course, there will be trying periods in our life when the path of ascension toward God will seem exceptionally difficult.
Then we should think that for every step taken there are a thousand rewards being prepared.
Sufferings along this path are momentary, but the rewards are eternal.
Therefore, do not fear the path of Christ, for a smooth and wide path ends in hell, but a thorny and narrow one leads to Heaven.

Why did God not make the path to the Kingdom of Heaven light and pleasant? Only God knows.
Who would question His divine wisdom? He saw that the narrow path is what we need!
We who are below see only bits and pieces, but He, Who is above all creation, sees our lives from the standpoint of eternity.

They became acquainted with sorrow and loved sorrow; they thirsted for suffering, and said that truth could only be attained through suffering. Then science appeared. As they became wicked they began talking of brotherhood and humanitarianism, and understood those ideas. As they became criminal, they invented justice and drew up whole legal codes in order to observe it, and to ensure their being kept, set up a guillotine. They hardly remembered what they had lost, in fact refused to believe that they had ever been happy and innocent.

Saint Makarios the Great says:
"Our Lord Jesus Christ came in order to change, transform, and renew human nature, and to recreate this soul, which through transgression had been cast down by the passions, by mingling it with the Divine Spirit. He came to make those who believe in Him a new mind, a new soul, new eyes, a new hearing, a new spiritual tongue — in a word, new people” (Philokalia 1:58).

Everything proceeds not from dogma but from life. One may know the Gospel magnificently and yet possess nothing of what the Holy Fathers speak about. But the saints of God became new people while still here on earth. “Whoever does and teaches them shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven...”

The saints did not teach us merely with words. They showed us. They gave us their very lives. Only within one’s own soul is the Kingdom of God revealed through the gradual acquisition of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Pray fervently to the Lord God and your cold heart will be warmed by His sweetest name, for our God is fire.
This cry destroys impure dreams and warms the heart for all His commandments.
For this reason, the prayerful calling upon His sweetest name must be the breath of our soul, must be more frequent than the beating of our heart.

What does it mean to worship God in spirit and truth?
It means to believe that God sees and hears those praying to Him, sighing to Him, repenting to Him, thanking and glorifying Him who is in all places and sees all things - and not in a certain place, for example, on some mountain, as the Samaritan woman thought, or only in the temple, although without a doubt in the temple God is closer to us, according to His own promise: "Where there are two or three gathered in My name, I am in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20), and especially for the reason of His holy Mysteries celebrated here.
To worship in spirit and in truth means to pray to God in communion with the Church with all your heart, with all your thoughts, with all zeal and reverence, with living faith, with firm hope - and not just uttering words without meaning and feeling or nodding your head and moving your hand without living thought and living feeling.
This last is not prayer, but only a lifeless shadow of prayer; it does not appease, but angers God.
May God deliver each of us from such prayer.

Let us all learn to worship God in spirit and truth: by praying, we will bring to God the fruits of prayer: unfeigned repentance, correction of the heart and whole life, and we will be zealous for every virtue.
This will be the worship of God in spirit and truth. Amen.

The entire history of Russia is interwoven with wondrous events obtained through the prayers of the faithful people to the Mother of God, blessed by self-sacrificing hierarchs, and proclaimed in the prophetic spirit by holy monastics filled with grace!
“There are no miracles in our time,” they say...
But how could miracles cease to exist while God exists, when every act of God is itself a miracle? Among believers, miracles are continual—daily and hourly.
Some see them, understand them with the mind, and perceive them with the heart; others do not. Nicodemus saw the miracles of Jesus Christ, while the other Pharisees did not.
Therefore, for believers there are miracles of God, but for unbelievers there are none.
Thus the Lord Himself said: If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth (Mark 9:23).
Amen.

However the humble are not slaves submitting to force, but spiritual victors over evil. Only they lead a true struggle with evil, for they uproot the very sources of it in their own hearts and the hearts of others. They do not believe that the cause of evil lies solely in the imperfection of social relationships. The humble man is a true warrior of Christ, and not a slave. But truly humble people are very hard to find these days—no one thinks about humility; it is practically forgotten.
The Lord says: But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first (Matt. 19:30).
That is how it is in life, and that is how it will be at the Last Judgment: The first proud and impudent will be the last, while the last—the insignificant and despised—will be the first.

Love often consists in being lenient and understanding toward others, and there is no humiliation in this, neither for the person nor for yourself, for Christ Himself acted in the same way.

23:1The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
23:2He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;
23:3he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.
23:4Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.
23:5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
23:6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

Pray to God for the removal of trials from you, and at the same time renounce your own will, as a sinful and blind will.
Surrender yourself, your soul and body, and your circumstances both present and future, and surrender your neighbours who are nearest and dearest to your heart to the all-holy and wise will of God.

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
The spirit is willing enough, but the flesh is weak (Mat. 26,41).

Ask the Lord to give you the grace to fulfill His holy Commandments as well as you can, even if they seem too difficult to keep.
Having done a good deed, do not expect gratitude, but temptation: for love towards God is tested by obstacles. Do not hope to acquire any virtues without suffering sorrows.
In the midst of temptations do not despair, but address God with short prayers: "Lord, help... Teach me to... Do not leave... Protect me... " The Lord allows temptations and trials; He also gives the strength to overcome them.

Ask God to take away from you every thing that feeds your pride, even if it will be bitter.
Avoid being harsh, gloomy, nagging, mistrustful, suspicious or hypocritical, and avoid rivalry.
Be sincere and simple in your attitude. Humbly accept the admonitions of others, even if you are more wise and experienced.