St. John of Kronstadt · 16 of 49

Part I · Part 16

God is an almighty power over all material worlds. More than that, He is a most wonderful, most merciful, and most just power over the spiritual world - that is, the world of angels and men. In His hands are all spirits, their peace and blessedness, as well as the anguish and torments of evil spirits and evil men.

As we sometimes blaspheme the Divinity by the impure, dark, and evil state of our soul - blaspheme the Father, the Word, and the Most Holy Ghost, the Comforter - so, on the contrary, some men, through the benign disposition of their souls, are capable of comforting all by their words, thus glorifying the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost the Comforter, " Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."

The Almighty Lord. His omnipotence embraces all creatures, the highest and the lowest, intellectual and sentient, angels and men, heaven and all that is therein, the earth and everything upon it, the sea and everything within it. His omnipotence absolutely embraces everything in general and every part of creation. Thus it embraces the heart of man and his thoughts; therefore it is said, "the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord." This is also why the Apostle says, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God." If God's grace leaves my heart and my mind I become as the dust carried away by the wind, without any moral stability, with an inclination to every possible evil; both my mind and my heart become empty, trivial, dark, and powerless.

The Virgin Mary is the most merciful sovereign of all the sons and daughters of men, as the Daughter of God the Father, Who is love; the Mother of God the Word, of our love; the chosen bride of the Holy Ghost, Who is love consubstantial with the Father and the Word. How can we do otherwise than have recourse to such a sovereign and expect to receive all spiritual blessings from Her?

Firmly purpose in your soul to hate every sin of thought, word, and deed, and when you are tempted to sin resist it valiantly and with a feeling of hatred for it; only beware lest your hatred should turn against the person of your brother who gave occasion for the sin. Hate the sin with all your heart, but pity your brother; instruct him, and pray for him to the Almighty, Who sees all of us and tries our hearts and innermost parts. "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." It is impossible not to often fall into sin unless you have a hatred of it implanted in your heart. Self-love must be eradicated. Every sin comes from the love of self. Sin always appears, or feigns to be, to wish us well, promising us plenteous- ness and ease. "The tree was good for food, and it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise." This is how sin always appears to us.

If guardian angels did not preserve us from the snares of evil demons, O how often we should have fallen from one sin into another; how devils would have tormented us—they who delight in tormenting men—which indeed happens when the Lord allows the guardian angels to withdraw themselves from us for a time, and devils lay snares for us. Yes, the angels of peace, our true guides, the guardians of our souls and bodies, are ever with us if we do not voluntarily drive them away from us by the abomination of sensuality, pride, doubt, and unbelief. We somehow feel that they cover us with the wings of their immaterial glory, only we do not see them. Our good thoughts, inclinations, words, and deeds, all proceed from them.

The enemy often wounds our souls by his malice and burns us. This wound spreads like a gangrene in the heart if we do not stop it in time by the sincere prayer of faith. And God wounds our souls by His love, but this wound is light, sweet, not burning, but warming and vivifying.

Concerning penitence. Penitence should be sincere, perfectly free, and not in any way forced by any particular time and habit, or by the person before whom the sinner confesses. Otherwise it would not be true penitence. It is said: " Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Is at hand—that is, it has come by itself. It is not necessary to seek for it long—it seeks us, our free inclination; that is, you yourself must repent with heartfelt contrition. "They were baptized of him " (is said of those baptized of John) "confessing their sins"; that is, they themselves acknowledged their sins. And as our prayer consists principally of penitence and asking forgiveness of our sins, it must absolutely be always sincere and perfectly free, not against our will, not forced out of us by habit and custom. Such also should be our prayer when it is one of thanksgiving and praise. Gratitude supposes the soul of the man benefited to be full of free, lively feeling flowing freely from the mouth, " for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Praise, too, supposes an ecstasy of wonder in the man who contemplates the infinite goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence of God in the moral and material world, and therefore it ought also to be a perfectly free and intelligent action. In general, prayer should be a free and perfectly conscious outpouring of the man's heart before God, "I have poured out my soul before the Lord." In order to purify and stimulate our prayer, the Lord allows the Devil to painfully inflame our inward parts, so that we, feeling a strange fire within us, and suffering from it, may endeavour to bring into our heart by means of humble prayer the fire of God, the fire of the Holy Ghost giving life to our hearts.

The Lord allows the enemy to tempt us in order to prove us, in order to strengthen our spiritual powers in our struggle against the enemy, and so that we ourselves may see more clearly towards what our heart inclines, whether it inclines to patience, hope, and love and in general to virtue, or to irritability, incredulity, murmuring, blasphemy, malice, and despair. Therefore we must not be despondent, but must good-humouredly and patiently bear spiritual darkness that descends upon our soul, the fire that weakens and inclines us to impatience and malice, the affliction and oppression, knowing that all these are indispensable in the order of our spiritual life, that by these the Lord is proving us. Do not let us blaspheme against the true way--the way of holy faith and virtue, and do not let us prefer the evil way. We are free, and must strengthen ourselves by every means and with all our power in faith and virtue, unto the laying down of our life for the way of truth; and how can this be if we have no temptations?

The Devil strikes the hearts of priests with slothfulness, dryness, and barrenness, in order that they should not preach the truths of the Gospel to God's people, should not tell them the entire Will of God. During prayer he also works upon the heart, and strikes it with insensibility, so that the prayer should not be sincere, but only said out of habit; he does not let the heart contemplate during prayer the greatness of all God's perfections, the greatness, of the Mother of God, that of the Angels, and of God's Saints. The Devil is like a wicked, sharp-pointed needle, which, at every time and everywhere, gets into the eyes of your heart, dimming and eclipsing them; he is the poisonous dust which always flies about our spiritual atmosphere and settles corrosively upon our hearts, eating them up and piercing them. He acts in the same manner upon some teachers of religion, striking their hearts with dryness and oppression, in order that they may not teach God's truths sympathetically to the young branches of Christ's vine, nor water them with the life-giving streams of the Gospel.

Here is a society of men of the world: they go on talking and talking, for the greater part amusing themselves with trifles, and there is no mention of God--the common Father of all--of His love for us, of the future life, of recompense; why is it so? Because they are ashamed to speak of God. But what is still more surprising is that even persons deeming themselves pious, themselves luminaries, seldom speak of God, of Christ the Saviour, of the preciousness of time, of abstinence, of the resurrection from the dead, of judgment, of future bliss and everlasting torments, either in their family circle or amongst men of the world, but often spend their time in futile conversations, games, and occupations! This is, again, because they are ashamed to converse upon such subjects, being afraid to weary others, or fearing that they themselves may not be able to converse heartily upon spiritual subjects. O, adulterous and sinful world! Woe unto thee at the day of judgment by the universal and impartial Judge. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Yes, the Lord and Creator of all is not received by us! He is not received into our houses, nor into our conversations; or, else, when a man reads a religious book or prayers aloud, why does he sometimes do so as if against his will, reluctantly, his tongue hesitating? His mouth speaketh not out of the abundance of the heart, but out of straitness and emptiness it can scarcely speak at all. Why is this so? It proceeds from the neglect of reading books and of prayer, and from false shame sown in the heart by the Devil. What miserable creatures we men are! We are ashamed of that which ought to be regarded as the highest honour. O, ungrateful and evil-natured creatures! What torments do we not deserve for such conduct.

When the enemy does not succeed in hindering the Christian upon the path of salvation by means of afflictions, oppression, poverty and various other privations, maladies, misfortunes, then he rushes to the other extreme: he fights against him by his own health, tranquillity, softness, the weakness of his heart, the insensibility of his soul to spiritual blessings, or by the opulence of his outer life. O, how dangerous is this last condition! It is more dangerous than the first state--the state of affliction, oppression, of sickness, etc. In such a state we easily forget God; we cease to feel His mercies; we slumber and spiritually sleep. "While the Bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made: Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him." But in affliction we involuntarily turn to God to be saved; we constantly feel that God is the God of our salvation--"the God Who saves"—that He is our life, our breath, our light, our strength. Thus, it is better for the Christian to live in some or other kind of affliction.

Prayer is—spiritual breathing; when we pray we breathe in the Holy Ghost; "praying in the Holy Ghost." Thus, all church prayers are—the breathing of the Holy Ghost; as it were spiritual air and also light, spiritual fire, spiritual food and spiritual raiment.

Holy Ghost, all we Christians are—Thy breath, Thy birth after baptism; by Thy first creative breathing into the person of the first man, we, all races of the earth, are—Thy breath, Thy birth! Have mercy upon us, raise us up, Holy Ghost! Drive away from us by Thy breathing the stench of our sins and passions, and uproot all our sinful inclinations!

During prayer always firmly believe and remember that every thought and word of yours may, undoubtedly, become deeds. "For with God nothing shall be impossible." "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." This signifies that even your words shall not be without power. "All things are possible to him that believeth." Take heed of your words; the word is precious. " Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment"

The Word is the expression of the truth; the truth itself, being and deed. The Word precedes every being, every thing, as the cause of their being—past, present, or future. " I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, Which is, and Which was, and Which is to come, the Almighty." Thus speaks the creative Word of the Father. In Him—in the Word—is the cause of all creatures—present, past, and future.

Why do we honour the cross with such reverence that we make mention of its power in our prayers after asking for the intercession of the Mother of God and the heavenly Powers, before asking for that of the Saints, and sometimes even before asking for that of the heavenly Powers? Because, after the Saviour's sufferings, the cross became the sign of the Son of man, that is, the cross signifies the Lord Himself, incarnate and suffering for our salvation. On the cross Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father for our sins on the cross, and by it, He has saved us from the works of the enemy; and this is why we honour it with such great reverence. And therefore it will always be a great power for believers, delivering them from every evil, and especially from the evil action of invisible enemies.

As light, air, and water are found together and mutually penetrate each other and, at the same time, do not intermingle, each of them remaining what it was before; the light--remaining light, the air--air, and the water--water, each entirely preserving its own particular properties, but the substance forming one matter, so also, in a somewhat similar manner, the Persons of the Most Divine Trinity are always found together, and are not separated from each other. The Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, whilst the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and resteth in the Son. But at the same time each Person has Its own particular properties: God the Father is not begotten, not created, does not proceed; the Son is begotten; the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, whilst the substance of the three Persons is one, a Divine, incomplex substance. This similarity is based upon the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who calls Himself the Light of the world, and thus speaks of the Holy Ghost, comparing It in Its actions to the element water: " He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive." He also compared the Holy Ghost to the air or wind: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." The Holy Church sings of the Holy Ghost: "To the Holy Ghost belongs every all-saving cause: on whomsoever He, through worthiness doth breathe, He quickly taketh him from earthly things."

It is the same to the Lord to give flesh to any creature He likes, either to an animal or a plant, as it would be to me to make a garment or clothing and put it on myself: " Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews." And what an infinite multitude and variety of material the Lord has, out of which He, the Creator, creates various clothing, of various shapes for His creatures (animals, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects)! And us He will eventually clothe with light, like unto of the sun in his kingdom! " Upon thy right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of gold." "Then shall the righteous shine forth, as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." And now we are clothed with the earth, water, air, warmth--such is our present clothing. And how wisely and conveniently all these elements are made and brought into union in our being! It is not heavy, and it is comely. O, Most-wise and Almighty Artist! Life-giving Artist! How beautiful, suitable, and animate is everything that Thou hast created! At Thy Will even the dust is animate, the dust moves!

The chief thing in prayer for which we must care above all is--lively, clear-sighted faith in the Lord: represent Him vividly before yourself and within you--then ask of Jesus Christ in the Holy Ghost whatever you desire and you will obtain it. Ask simply, without the slightest doubt--then your God will be everything to you, accomplishing in an instant great and wonderful acts, as the sign of cross, accomplishes great wonders. Ask for both spiritual and material blessings not only for yourself, but for all believers, for the whole body of the Church, not separating yourself from other believers, but in spiritual union with them, as a member of the one great body of the Church of Christ, and loving all, as your brethren or children in Christ, as the case may be. The heavenly Father will fill you with the great peace and boldness.

When praying, pay steadfast attention to the words of the prayer, feeling them in your heart. Do not withdraw your mind from them to any other thoughts. When praying during Divine service, during the celebration of the Sacraments and the singing of the prayers and hymns upon various occasions, lay surely to your heart the words themselves of the church prayers, believing, that not a single word is placed there in vain, that every one of them has its power, that in each word dwells the Holy Trinity the Lord Himself, "Who is everywhere present and fills all things": think thus:--I myself am nothing, the Lord does everything. Also think: when I speak--God the Word, speaks in me. I need be careful for nothing." Casting all your care," it is said, "upon Him, for He careth for you."

When you read a worldly magazine or newspaper, it is light and agreeable reading, you easily believe in everything in it. But if you take up a religious publication or book to read, especially one relating to church matters, or sometimes when you begin reading prayers--you feel a weight upon your heart, you are tormented by doubt and unbelief, and experience a sort of darkness and aversion. Many acknowledge this. From what does it proceed? Of course, not from the nature of the books themselves, but from the nature of the readers, from the nature of their hearts, and--chiefly--from the Devil, the enemy of mankind, the enemy of everything holy: "he taketh away the word out of their hearts." When we read worldly books, we do not touch him, and he does not touch us. But as soon as we take up religious books, as soon as we begin to think of our amendment and salvation, then we go against him, we irritate and torment him, and therefore he attacks us and torments us on his side. What can we do? We must not throw aside the good work, the reading or prayers that are profitable to our souls, but we must patiently endure, and in patience save our souls. "In your patience possess ye your souls," says the Lord. The same applies to theatres and churches, to the stage and Divine service. Many people find it pleasant to go to the theatre, and oppressive and dull to go to church. Wherefore? Because in the theatre everything is well suited to please the sensual man, and when we are there we do not provoke the Devil, but please him, and he, on his side, affords us pleasure, and does not touch us. Make merry, my friends, thinks he--laugh, only do not remember God. Whilst in the church everything is adapted to arouse faith and the fear of God, pious feelings, the feeling of our sinfulness and corruption; and the Devil sows in our hearts doubt, weariness, despondency, evil, impure and blasphemous thoughts--so that the man is not glad in himself, and cannot stand for even an hour, and he gets away as quickly as possible. The theatre and the church--are opposite contrasts. The one is the temple of the world, and the other the temple of God; the one is the temple of the Devil, and the other--the temple of the Lord.

When you are asked to pray that someone may be saved from bodily death, for instance, from drowning, from death through any sickness, from fire, or from any other disaster, commend the faith of those who ask you to do so, and say in yourself: Blessed be your faith, according to your faith may the Lord fulfil my unworthy, feeble prayer, and may He increase my faith.

You easily forgive yourself, if you have sinned against God, or against men; accordingly easily forgive other people too. Love your neighbour as yourself, forgive him much. "How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven," said the Lord. By this love is known. Even this is little for love to do: love loves its enemies, does good to them which hate it, blesses them that curse it, and prays for them which despitefully use it.

The Lord, unto Whom all hearts are open, knowing our avarice and trivial, covetous calculation in those cases, when we have to show hospitality and kindness to people, from whom we do not expect to receive the equivalent,--has promised to remunerate us in the day of judgment, not only for having given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, for having visited the sick and those in prison, but He has promised a reward even for a cup of cold water, given to a Christian or to an unbeliever in His name. "Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, .... verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." O, the loving-kindness, and mercy of Christ! Who, after this, will not be ashamed of the hardness of his heart, and his shameful avarice!

The Devil, as a spirit, as an incomplex being, can hinder and wound the soul by a single instantaneous movement of the thought of wickedness, of doubt, blasphemy, impatience, irritation, malice, by an instantaneous movement of any attachment of the heart to anything earthly, by a movement of intuitive sight, adultery and other passions--he can fan the spark of sin, with the cunning and malice peculiar to him, into a flame, raging with infernal strength within the man. We must stand fast and strengthen ourselves by every means in God's truth, rejecting the lies, illusions, and malice of the Devil, at their very beginning. In such cases, the man should be all watchfulness, all eyes, hard as adamant, invincible in every part, firm and invulnerable. O, Glory, glory to Thy victory, Lord! Thus may I conquer, by the power of Thy might, the invisible and visible enemies, all the days of my life, until my last breath. Amen. O, simplicity of faith, do not leave me.

Do not have any partiality, not only either for food and drink, for dress, for a spacious and richly decorated dwelling, for the luxurious furniture of your house, but not even for your health, do not even have the least partiality for your life, give up all your life to the Will of the Lord, saying: "for, to me to live--is Christ and to die--is gain." "He that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal." Attachment to the temporary life, to one's own health, leads to many deviations from God's Commandments, to the indulgence of the flesh, to breaking the fasts, to evading the conscientious fulfilment of the duties connected with our service, to despondency, impatience, irritability. Never sleep before saying evening-prayers, lest your heart should become gross from ill-timed sleep, and lest the enemy should hinder it by a stony insensibility during prayer. "Be sober, be vigilant." "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh." "Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."

Pray, my brethren, to the Mother of God when the storm of enmity and malice bursts forth in your house. She, Who is all-merciful and all-powerful, can easily pacify the hearts of men. Peace and love proceed from the one God, as from their Source, and Our Lady—in God, as the Mother of Christ the Peace, is zealous, and prays for the peace of the whole world, and above all—of all Christians. She has the all-merciful power of driving away from us at Her sign the sub-celestial spirits of evil—those ever-vigilant and ardent sowers of enmity and malice amongst men, whilst to all who have recourse with faith and love to Her powerful protection, She soon speedily gives both peace and love. Be zealous yourselves also in preserving faith and love in your hearts; for if you do not care for this, then you will be unworthy of the intercession for you—of the Mother of God; be also most fervent and most reverent worshippers of the Mother of the Almighty Lord; for it is truly meet to bless Her—the ever-blessed; the entirely spotless Mother of our God, the highest of all creatures, the Mediatrix for the whole race of mankind. Strive to train yourself in the spirit of humility, for She Herself was more humble than any mortal, and only looks lovingly upon the humble." He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden" (said She to Elisabeth), of "God, Her Saviour."

Do not let the Devil sow enmity and malice in your heart against your neighbour; do not let these feelings nestle in any way in your heart; otherwise your malice, even if not expressed in words, but shown only in your glance, may infect through sight the soul of your brother also (for nothing is so infectious as malice, it easily infects especially those who have in their hearts an abundance of unslumbering malice), and fans the spark of evil in them into a whole flame. Be watchful: "with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." "For, nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither anything hid, that shall not be known and come abroad."

Cultivate the Christian art of doing good, of heartily blessing those who curse you, by which you will please your Lord Christ, Who said: "Bless them that curse you. Love your enemies" sincerely, not regarding their enmity—but respecting in them the image of God, according to which they are created, and seeing in them your own self. "Do good to them which hate you," as the Son of the heavenly Father, Who is kind even "unto the unthankful and to the evil," believing that you will overcome evil with good, because good is always more powerful than evil. " Pray for them which despitefully use you," so that through your prayer you may save them also, by God's grace, from the evil malice and the snares of the Devil, and save yourself too from misfortune. "Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again," for everything comes from God, and, should the Lord will, He can take everything away from you. Remember, that you yourself have come naked out of your mother's womb, and naked shall you return thither, and shall not take anything away with you. If you will thus live, you will gain for yourself the priceless treasure of peace and love, and shall live long on the earth: for "the meek-spirited," it is said, "shall possess the earth: and shall be refreshed in the multitude of peace."

I look to Thee alone, Lord, with my spiritual vision. I believe in Thee undoubtingly. Thou Thyself knowest how and what to give me. Thou art—the treasury of every blessing, Thou art—mercy, wisdom, and omnipotence abundantly flowing upon all creatures. Thus I also look to Thee, O Holy Virgin. " Intercede for and have mercy upon me Thyself!"

Do not grow despondent and enfeebled in spirit, seeing the constant struggle within you of evil against good, but like a good and valiant soldier of Jesus Christ, our great Founder, struggle courageously against evil, looking at the crown, prepared by the Lord for all who conquer evil in this world and in their flesh." To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with Me in My Throne."

In order not to remember the malice of your neighbour against you, but to pardon him with all your soul, remember, that you, yourself, are not free from malice, as well as from all other passions. Recognise your neighbour's infirmities and passions as your own: "forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." O, how sinful I am, how loathsome I am by my sins in the eyes of God, of men, and even in mine own! Who can be more loathsome to me than myself? Truly nobody; in comparison to me all are righteous. I must be unmercifully angry with myself, and must consider it a special happiness to forgive my neighbour's trespasses and offences against me, an unworthy one, so that the long-suffering, bountiful, and merciful Lord may forgive me even some of my trespasses. I must remember, that it is only by this that I can become deserving of the Lord's mercy to me, otherwise I ought long to have ceased to live.