☦
As regards your inner laboring, I’ll tell you this: do not set up any great tasksfor yourself and do not fix any deadlines, but always in whatever you might be doing abstain from evil and from trespassing external and inner rules and force yourself to do good. In other words, no matter how much energy and struggle it takes, try to act not as you wish, but as the Lord tells you to do inHis commandments. It is not said without purpose that the Kingdom of Godis taken by force. This commitment is complemented by another one – the endurance of sorrows and diseases.
The Lord has bestowed a great mercy on you to show that He does not want sinners to die. You were close to a spiritual perish, and after death, an abyss of the hell would have been awaiting you. You did not and could not hear what you were told. So, a stronger instrument was needed to tear you off the way leading to perdition. And the Lord had to send you this instrument - your disease (cancer of the lower lip). So do not grumble against God, do not be downhearted, but thank God for his gracious care for your salvation.
According to the Good News, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” You are dear to God. So do not offend him by ingratitude, by violating His holy commandments and by grumbling.
To learn how not to be absent-minded when praying, one must humble before God and people and exercise a lot to obtain this skill. Without humbleness people will always suffer from absent-mindedness. But do not lose heart because of that, wait and be patient, consider yourself unworthy of any good gifts. We all are unworthy not only of any special mercies, but evento pronounce the name of God.
If it is necessary and useful for you, God will extend your life for your good. A life to the detriment of the soul is worse than the death opening the way to the Kingdom of God. I am glad that you have overcome feeling bad about me.
This gives hope that with God’s help you will also overcome worldly convictions and inclinations and all that takes us away from God. Try to do away with other passions in this way. It is no easy task, but this is the only way to salvation. Always blame yourself, saying: “the Lord knows everything,so this is what I deserve.” This will make you calm down.
Pray for me. I also remember you in my prayers. Go on laboring. Do not lose heart, but endure everything and thank God for whatever He may send you.
#Abbot_Nikon_Vorobiev
#Spiritual_letters
As regards your inner laboring, I’ll tell you this: do not set up any great tasksfor yourself and do not fix any deadlines, but always in whatever you might be doing abstain from evil and from trespassing external and inner rules and force yourself to do good. In other words, no matter how much energy and struggle it takes, try to act not as you wish, but as the Lord tells you to do inHis commandments. It is not said without purpose that the Kingdom of Godis taken by force. This commitment is complemented by another one – the endurance of sorrows and diseases.
The Lord has bestowed a great mercy on you to show that He does not want sinners to die. You were close to a spiritual perish, and after death, an abyss of the hell would have been awaiting you. You did not and could not hear what you were told. So, a stronger instrument was needed to tear you off the way leading to perdition. And the Lord had to send you this instrument - your disease (cancer of the lower lip). So do not grumble against God, do not be downhearted, but thank God for his gracious care for your salvation.
According to the Good News, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” You are dear to God. So do not offend him by ingratitude, by violating His holy commandments and by grumbling.
To learn how not to be absent-minded when praying, one must humble before God and people and exercise a lot to obtain this skill. Without humbleness people will always suffer from absent-mindedness. But do not lose heart because of that, wait and be patient, consider yourself unworthy of any good gifts. We all are unworthy not only of any special mercies, but evento pronounce the name of God.
If it is necessary and useful for you, God will extend your life for your good. A life to the detriment of the soul is worse than the death opening the way to the Kingdom of God. I am glad that you have overcome feeling bad about me.
This gives hope that with God’s help you will also overcome worldly convictions and inclinations and all that takes us away from God. Try to do away with other passions in this way. It is no easy task, but this is the only way to salvation. Always blame yourself, saying: “the Lord knows everything,so this is what I deserve.” This will make you calm down.
Pray for me. I also remember you in my prayers. Go on laboring. Do not lose heart, but endure everything and thank God for whatever He may send you.
#Abbot_Nikon_Vorobiev
#Spiritual_letters
Please forgive me for my belated reply to your letter which is dear to me. I am not feeling well, and the thoughts about death do not leave me alone. I feel that if I live up to see 1963, I will not pass it through. For me personally,death is desirable. I know that there is future life, that there is God’s mercy for us and there is hope for us believing in the Lord Jesus Christ to enter intothe blissful eternity, rather than an everlasting torturous future.
Religious perceptions, though different from the spiritual meaning ofthe world, are also as real as the perceptions of the physical world. The earthly life is not for pleasures but for getting knowledge of oneself and of God.
During their earthly life people must make a resolute and irrevocable choice– to strive for good or for evil; for God or for devil. Those seeking God and His truth will find God and the rudiments of a new life here, on earth, and in itsfullness – after death. An egoist looking exclusively for earthly pleasures will find the devil and after death, as of one in spirit with the devil will go to the Devil’s kingdom, Hell, to join the community of downright egoists and evil-doers. Our future destiny is in our hands… Forgive me, if I am writing not quite what I should. I am sorry not to have come to see you this summer.
I wish to be farther from this life and from the spirit of this world. This spirit has taken possession of the whole mankind. Only from the outside it is possible to see and to feel the loathsome vileness and ugliness of this spirit.
There are very few people in the world today, who are capable of escaping the influence of this evil spirit on them. This is horrible! They say, that a frogmeeting with the eyes of a snake cannot cast its glance away, it starts to cry,but is unable to run away and instead is moving closer and closer to the snake until it fnally gets into its mouth.
There are words in one of the evening prayers, pleading: “Lord, take me away from the mouth of the abhorrent serpent, desiring to devour me alive and to throw into the hell.” These words come from human experience. Those possessed by this spirit do not understand them and do not believe those who have freed themselves from it.
May the Lord bless you and protect you from evil and lead you to eternal blissfulness after death. God willing, we might see each other in the outer world.
Choose God; keep away from the devil in spirit and in deed, so that the Lord’s words: “Who is coming to Me I will not cast out” may be also said about you.
#Abbot_Nikon_Vorobiev
#Spiritual_letters
Religious perceptions, though different from the spiritual meaning ofthe world, are also as real as the perceptions of the physical world. The earthly life is not for pleasures but for getting knowledge of oneself and of God.
During their earthly life people must make a resolute and irrevocable choice– to strive for good or for evil; for God or for devil. Those seeking God and His truth will find God and the rudiments of a new life here, on earth, and in itsfullness – after death. An egoist looking exclusively for earthly pleasures will find the devil and after death, as of one in spirit with the devil will go to the Devil’s kingdom, Hell, to join the community of downright egoists and evil-doers. Our future destiny is in our hands… Forgive me, if I am writing not quite what I should. I am sorry not to have come to see you this summer.
I wish to be farther from this life and from the spirit of this world. This spirit has taken possession of the whole mankind. Only from the outside it is possible to see and to feel the loathsome vileness and ugliness of this spirit.
There are very few people in the world today, who are capable of escaping the influence of this evil spirit on them. This is horrible! They say, that a frogmeeting with the eyes of a snake cannot cast its glance away, it starts to cry,but is unable to run away and instead is moving closer and closer to the snake until it fnally gets into its mouth.
There are words in one of the evening prayers, pleading: “Lord, take me away from the mouth of the abhorrent serpent, desiring to devour me alive and to throw into the hell.” These words come from human experience. Those possessed by this spirit do not understand them and do not believe those who have freed themselves from it.
May the Lord bless you and protect you from evil and lead you to eternal blissfulness after death. God willing, we might see each other in the outer world.
Choose God; keep away from the devil in spirit and in deed, so that the Lord’s words: “Who is coming to Me I will not cast out” may be also said about you.
#Abbot_Nikon_Vorobiev
#Spiritual_letters