AT meat week Archpriest Alexander Avdyugin gives advice to those who are preparing to fast in earnest.

Bishop PANTELEIMON of Smolensk and Vyazemsky tells about preparing for confession, about what "sins" you do not need to repent of, and about how to find out if you have received communion in condemnation

How to prepare for confession?
How can we try to make each confession bring us closer to the Kingdom of Heaven? The Nativity Fast has begun, and during the Nativity Fast it is very important to prepare for confession especially seriously, to try especially deeply to penetrate into the recesses of evil that are rooted in our souls, to explore them and bring due repentance to God. You and I must understand the words of the holy fathers, who say that every sin requires either a proportionate repentance, or a proportionate torment will follow each sin. If we do not want this torment, we must repent in proportion to the sin. If we have committed a serious sin, then we need to especially repent, especially cry about our sin, ask the confessor for penance, make prostrations, refrain from committing any actions that could again lead to the commission of this sin, be very careful. If the sin is small, then you need to repent and try not to do it anymore, but, all the same, you need to repent, of course, in small sins. One cannot think that sins are forgiven by God without repentance. Sins are forgiven in this way until the age of seven, and starting from the age of seven, a person must still be aware of his sins and repent of them.

Of course, there are different extremes: some person may not see his sins, some may submit a written notebook for confession, which lists a variety of sins and, probably, this is not entirely correct. Even Rev. John of the Ladder - a person living in the world should not analyze his actions too deeply, he is unlikely to succeed, but should repent of those sins that he sees. Everything must have its own measure, and one must try to learn this measure from experience. One must strive to ensure that the soul is calm, that the conscience does not torment, that there is joy in the soul, and one must, of course, be able to distinguish pure joy, the joy that comes from God, to distinguish from the delightful joy, the joy of pleasures, from vain thoughts that caress the soul. You need to be able to discern this in your soul, and, of course, experience is needed here, you can hardly do this by reading some book, but you can, on the advice of a confessor, an experienced confessor, be afraid of false joys and accept genuine consolations from God.

So, we need to prepare for confession. We should try to remember everything that we have done since the last confession. During Christmas Lent, Great Lent, before a wedding, before taking, say, holy orders, before a serious operation, it would be appropriate to remember the sins committed throughout life. It is not necessary to talk about them in confession, but if they continue to torment, if we feel that we have not repented of everything, or have repented formally, shallowly, of course, we can also talk about these sins. But first of all, it is necessary to say about the sins that have been committed by us since the day of the last confession. If you don’t know how to remember your sins, if you’re not good at it, maybe it’s worth writing down these sins every evening before going to bed, only it’s better to make these records encrypted so that a member of your family, finding them, does not understood what you write about in these notes or somehow hide them in a special way so that they do not catch the eye of some close relative, because this can tempt him very much. A husband can be seduced by the confession of his wife, a wife by the confession of her husband, what we say in confession should not be known by anyone except our confessor and God, before whom we repent.

Remembering all the things that the council accused us of, we need to pay special attention to those of our actions, words, thoughts, because of which we have lost the grace of God. I think that all of you, dear friends, after communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, maybe not always, but at least sometimes, feel a special calmness that comes to the soul, and with this calmness someone lives for five minutes, someone lives all week, and for someone in an hour it is lost in the soul. It is necessary to pay attention to why this happens, what sins violate our inner dispensation, and these sins should be especially repented of. It is very useful before confessing not only to remember everything that happened, but also to check yourself again, remembering the commandments: the Old Testament commandments, the commandments given to us for blessedness by our Lord Jesus Christ. You can check yourself on the “scale” of sinful passions, which we talked about, how much the eight main passions act in us, how they manifest themselves in our life, how much we were exposed to these passions during this period, after the last confession. We need to carefully monitor ourselves all the time of our lives, but when preparing for confession, we need to especially remember what happened, be sure to pray to God, ask God to reveal to us those sins that we may have forgotten, that we did not notice.

We must, of course, carefully listen to the assessment of our actions by other people. Maybe it’s not worth asking the wife of her husband what she needs to repent of in confession, and, probably, the mother is not always right when she says to the child: “Go repent of this and that”, sometimes this, of course, is necessary do, but not always. You don't have to ask your friends, "Help me repent." All this can even serve to quarrel with his wife, to a quarrel with friends, when friends suddenly begin to say that, it turns out, “you are like this, you are like this”, this path can be dangerous, but listen to what they say about us, how they we are evaluated, nevertheless it is necessary, especially if you are just starting your spiritual life. Their assessments are not always correct, but sometimes a person from the outside notices our sins better than we ourselves. You probably know this feature: when we hear our voice from the side, it seems to us somehow unpleasant (to me anyway), somehow strange, but this does not happen when I pronounce some words. When I see myself from the outside, I feel completely different from how I feel when I do not see myself, and this external look at us can be very important. But this is not the most important thing, the most important thing is how God looks at us, the most important thing is to walk before God, applying the commandments given by God to ourselves, to test ourselves, but still, sometimes it is useful to look at ourselves from the side through the eyes of other people, because sometimes we do not notice rudeness in our words, some kind of cruelty in our actions, sometimes in our intonations we do not notice indifference to someone else's pain, to someone else's suffering, and from the outside it can sometimes be seen.

Sometimes what we consider kindness is actually extravagance, what we consider thrift is stinginess, and therefore, of course, we need to try to penetrate deeper into the meaning of our actions, into the motives for which we do this or that. Sometimes an act seems to be good, but it is caused by some kind of evil desire, and we are very slyly able to justify ourselves, we say: “Well, we must put an end to this evil, we must make a remark.” In fact, we want to get angry, this anger bursts us, and we justify ourselves by the fact that we need to tame this evil a little. A person can be filled with some kind of prodigal, impure desires, but he justifies himself: “Well, you need to see to what extent the world has now sunk, what is the modern youth doing so badly now?” But in fact, he has a lustful desire to get enough of some prodigal dirt. It happens. Very often we cover up our evil desires with some plausible pretexts and justify our impure thoughts with some kind of good goals. This, too, must be dealt with. And we need to expose in every possible way the cunning of our sinful mind, we need to see the hypocrisy of our soul, riddled with sin.

You can read some books, there are wonderful sermons by Father John Krestyankin, a sermon before confession on the Old Testament commandments, on the commandments of beatitude, in which Father John Krestyankin describes the state of the modern human soul very deeply and in detail. There are different lists of sins. But still, one should not get carried away with various literature, sometimes some sins appear in it, which, perhaps, it is better for us not to know about. Sometimes some stupid things appear in these lists, for example, “I drove away mosquitoes during prayer,” it’s somehow strange. Or “soaked up in bed”, but we all lie down in bed and yet we need to distinguish between serious sins and our, perhaps, infirmities. It is not a sin to eat when you are hungry and thank God for it, it is not a sin of gluttony, of course, some friendly jokes during a conversation are not a sin, you don’t need to repent of this either - here you need to be careful and not to strain mosquitoes, but to fight those camels that we constantly swallow, take into our souls, fight terrible, grave sins: pride, vanity, despondency, any carnal impurity, and other grave sins that, perhaps, do not result in any - some actions, but nevertheless all the same, are performed by our soul.

Sometimes a person, preparing for confession, writes down his sins on paper. As a person who takes confession, I can say that it is easier for me to read this piece of paper. When there is a long queue, I quickly run my eyes through everything that is written on this piece of paper, cover the person with an stole, or omophorion, read the permissive prayer and am ready to confess the next one. But on my own, I understand that if I let the priest read my sins on a piece of paper, I kind of shy away from bringing repentance to God. Still, I must say my sins, I must declare them before God, before the priest. It's probably embarrassing, it's probably embarrassing. I don’t know about you, but I never really want to go to confession, even though something is pressing me, even though it’s hard for me, but still, it’s somehow uncomfortable to go to confession. I want to remain somehow good, I don’t want to admit those sinful deeds that I have committed. And, of course, it is more difficult to recognize them when you talk about them than when you give a piece of paper with writing on which these sins are written down by you at home, and watch (you may even turn away and not see) how the one who confesses you reads them. It’s better to name your sins, and therefore you can draw up some, say, a summary of confession, you can be guided by it if you are afraid to forget something, but it’s probably still wrong to give the priest a piece of paper. The only time you can do this is if you have committed some very serious sin and are afraid to tell the priest about it. If you are afraid to do this, it is better to give a piece of paper with a written sin than not to talk about it at all.

There are some people whose soul is in such a borderline state, not mentally ill, but people who are shy, or some other, they cannot confess otherwise than by giving such a note, and then the confessor will still accept such a confession, but it's still okay to talk about your sins. The only thing you need to do, dear friends: you need to repent at confession, listing your sins. Because sometimes they come and begin to tell: “I came home yesterday, my husband met me, he, as always, was tipsy, I made a remark to him and my husband began to shout at me, and I got angry and hit him in the face. Of course, I did wrong. But what was left for me to do?..” This is not a confession. We must still clothe our confession in the form of repentance. It doesn't have to be a story. Although there are people who, due to their simplicity, simply do not know how to repent otherwise, and. Maybe. Their confessor accepts their confession in this form, but still it would be more correct to say this: “I am angry, very irritable, and I got angry with my husband when he behaved incorrectly and hit him in the face ...” Here how it will sound, it seems to me, the correct confession.

Very often people write too much in their notes, they talk too much. There is another opposite, also incorrect, when a person simply lists his sins: “I sinned with vanity, despondency, irritation, prayed badly. I broke the fast, I had bad thoughts,” the children say “behaved badly,” so they repent. And this is also wrong. What does "behave badly" mean? What does "vanity" mean? What does "bad thoughts" mean? What is it, how to understand it? We must not talk about the passion that affects you, it affects everyone, but about how this passion manifests itself in you. Let's say I thought to myself that I had delivered a very good sermon, that this sermon should be printed in a collection and handed out to everyone in the church. Such a thought came to me, and so this thought can be repented of, if necessary, if there is time. Or it is necessary to say not “I was annoyed with my daughter”, but “I humiliated my daughter, called her bad words” or “hit”. Or you can say "annoyed", different things. That is, on the one hand, confession should not be a detailed account of all the circumstances of, say, some business, it should not be a story about your life, but should be repentance for a specific sin, but, on the other hand, it should not be designated by one word.

Generally diligence modern people finding names for your sins is a bit wrong. There are people who painfully seek to know what other sins there are. So what is bullshit? It seems to me that this is wrong, and sins should be called as they are called in modern Russian. When we pray, we, of course, take the words of the holy fathers, take their images, read morning and evening prayers, that's right, we learn this language, we learn the right attitude towards God, but when we repent, it seems to me that everyone must repent. still in your own words. It must be said that I did not sin with greed, but, say, curry favor with a woman, I thought she would give me money for something; I did good, wanting to be answered. Or, for example, mischief, it is generally such a mysterious sin, I will not talk about it here now. The desire to know what it is, after all, is probably wrong. We know that there are eight passions, that there are commandments, in all violations of these commandments, in all our exposure to these passions, we must repent.

In different ways, dear friends, we have to confess. By fasting, you can confess in detail, even before death, if there is such an opportunity, you will need to remember everything and repent of everything, mourn all your sins again. If you have not been to confession for a long time, you need to ask the priest to give you special time. But if you confessed a week or two ago, then it will probably be enough to confess briefly. One must be able to confess both briefly and in detail, and each time be ready for one confession and another, this is how I imagine a “perfect” penitent sinner who can confess like this, depending on the circumstances. There are circumstances when there are a lot of people, when it is not possible to tell everything. Sometimes it is possible and necessary to tell everything in detail, and sometimes it is necessary to say everything briefly. In some cases, they fit under the stole of the priest, under the permissive prayer: on Holy Week When we receive communion on Maundy Thursday, and on Holy Saturday, and on Easter, these days they sometimes receive communion without confession at all. Here it is the confessor’s business, how to decide, you need to obey him in this matter, and if the confessor says that you don’t need to confess, you didn’t have any special sins, you can go under the epitrachelion.

If you have committed a special sin, maybe you have stolen something (I won’t talk about some bad sins), or you haven’t smoked for a long time and suddenly started smoking, you must definitely say about it, you can’t just come up and bend your head under the stole . Still, you need to distinguish between those sins that have violated your inner dispensation, from the usual dirt that falls on the soul in our Everyday life.

Different sins need to be repented in different ways. I think there is such a kind of sins, unclean, filthy, in which you do not need to repent in detail, which you do not need to talk about in detail, but still you need to make it clear what happened, because sometimes they talk about these sins only in general terms, without telling about what happened during this sin, and hide behind these general words some, perhaps terribly, distortion of the relationship between a man and a woman. I will not, dear friends, delve into this especially, but you need to understand that if this sin penetrates deep into you, you need to say something about this priest. There is different types these sins, it is not necessary to talk about them in detail, but it is necessary that it be clear what you repent of. There is no need to remember such sins in detail, because they can again somehow affect the soul, but sins that are shameful to repent of, crazy pride, vanity, theft, insult and humiliation of other people - you must definitely remember and It is very important to remember these sins, especially when we have some proud thoughts.

So, let's say you prepared for confession, repented of it, the priest reads you a permissive prayer - and says nothing. You have the right, dear friends, to ask him: “Father! And what sin do I need to fight especially? Father! What advice would you give me so that I don't repeat this sin?" But at the same time be ready to do everything he tells you. Why is it necessary to do this? Because spiritual people, great elders, are very modest, meek, humble, and they believe that they cannot teach you anything. But if you ask them, they will be forced to give you an answer. Truly spiritual people did not push forward, did not organize any webinars, they sat in their desert, in the forest, praying to God for the whole world, considering themselves unworthy to say something. In order to receive guidance, you must definitely ask the priest and before that pray that he will answer what is useful for you, what is necessary for you, but be ready to fulfill it.

It is necessary to distinguish between confession and conversation with a priest. There are some priests who have few spiritual children, who live in villages, villages, where you can talk about something during confession. But in the city, especially during fasting and before major holidays, when there are many confessors, the priest will not be able to talk with you in detail. Therefore, you can tell him: “Father, you know, I would like to talk with you about my life, I would like you to help me determine the prayer rule, which prayers to read in the morning, which in the evening. I would like to know what is the measure of fasting, how can I fast in this fast. I have this situation: I have friends who behave a little wrong, I would like to know from you if I should meet with them. “My husband and I would like to adopt a child”, “I would like to get married”, “change jobs”, “go somewhere to study”, “I would like to discuss what books I should read”, “how long can I stay on the Internet, I feel that it is harmful to my soul, but I can’t go there at all for work”… All these issues can be resolved at confession, but it’s better, after all, in a separate conversation. Ask the priest to give you time if you believe he can help you, and talk to him about it sometime.

And at confession, you can ask how you can get rid of sin, what you need to do for this. You can ask the priest to give you penance if you have committed a serious sin, but he does not give it to you; ask if you can take communion after some serious sin, and do as he blesses. If a priest says something that seems wrong to you, and if he is not a marvelous old man, a confessor not known to the whole world, you can say to him: “Father! You probably didn’t understand me, I meant this and that, ”but if he insists on what he said, even after listening to you, then you probably have to do it, since you trusted him, since chose to be their confessors.

What the priest tells you in confession is better not to tell anyone. Father Alexy Mechev spoke about this. When he gave instructions to his spiritual children, he did not allow them to tell anyone about it, because what he said to one person could tempt another, what is useful for one may be harmful and unnecessary for another, so there must be very careful. It's like going to a doctor to prescribe you a medicine, say, to increase blood pressure. Will you give this medicine to everyone when a person is not all right with pressure or something else? The medicine can kill him, not cure him. Therefore, you need to be very careful with the recommendations that you received from the priest, do not share them with others.

The following question arises: is it good for a wife and husband to have one confessor? Of course, this is very good and this is very correct, because sometimes disagreements arise between a husband and wife, and their confessors give them different blessings regarding fasting, for example, regarding the prayer rule, the frequency of communion, raising children, if they have them. . Therefore, it is better to have one confessor. Sometimes there are confessors who are different, but who are in spiritual communion, for example, a husband confesses to the confessor, and the wife confesses to the spiritual child of this confessor, to another, some young priest, or to friends of the priest. There are fewer dangers here, although they still exist, and if these are different priests, then the danger is very great, then someone may need to give up their interests, desires, and, perhaps, confess to the confessor of the wife or husband. Although I know cases when everything ended peacefully, although there were different confessors. We talk about how it's better, but in life, unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way.

When should you go to confession? I think that confession during the Liturgy is very bad. We must try to find another time for confession. During the Liturgy, you need to thank God, and not think about your sins, the time of the Liturgy is a time of joy, a time of prayerful communion with God, a time of remembering the saving passions of our Lord Jesus Christ and His glorious Resurrection. The time of the Liturgy is the time of preparing oneself to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and not the time of repentance. Although we sing “Lord, have mercy” at the Liturgy and ask for the forgiveness of sins, this is still not the main theme of the Liturgy. Liturgy is the joy of communion with God, you need to repent before that. If this does not work out for you (you have children, a family, you are late), you can briefly confess after “Our Father”, but in exceptional cases. If the priest does not conduct confession in the evening or in the morning before the service, this does not mean that you cannot ask him about it. "Father, can I confess in the evening, I can't in the morning?" “Can I confess before the service, and not before the Our Father? After all, standing at the Liturgy and preparing for confession after the Our Father, you think about your sins, and not about what happens at the Liturgy. If you really repent of sins, then these sins, not yet confessed, not yet forgiven by God, sit in you like a splinter in your soul and prevent you from enjoying the Liturgy, participating in the Liturgy, so it is very important to find the right time for confession, although, of course, it does not depend on you, but on your confessor and the rules of the temple where you go. But if possible, it is better to do it right.

There is another question: how to behave after confession? You probably know, dear friends, that by kissing the cross and the Gospel, you are not just kissing the shrine, but you are renewing your baptismal vows, which you have broken by committing certain sins. You make a solemn promise to God not to repeat what you repented of in confession. And after confession, you must definitely keep yourself from sin, you must, kissing the cross and the Gospel, find in your soul the determination to fight sin ruthlessly. Sin has permeated the soul, and it can be torn out of the soul only with blood, injuring the soul, which has grown together with sin, one must not be afraid of this pain, one must definitely reject this sin from oneself. You must promise this without fail, kissing the cross and the Gospel, and without fail after confession, refrain from sin. Of course, if you filled a notebook with your sins, it is unlikely that you will be able to get rid of all at once, but at least one must be chosen, at least two of some directions in the fight against the passions that torment you, make a promise at least in this. If you do this at every confession, then gradually the soul will be cleansed of sins. This must be done, dear friends.

There is another question: how to confess to children? You all probably have children, what about a child's confession? On the one hand, confession cannot be used as a means of education. “Father! Tell my child to obey his mother." “Here you are in confession, say that you didn’t obey your mother.” And the child usually comes up and lists not his real sins that he feels or feels, but what adults told him. “I didn’t obey my mother”, “I got a deuce”, “I went to bed late”, “I didn’t eat anything at the table, I don’t like semolina” ... You know, this is not the most important thing in his life. Of course, children themselves cannot fully realize their sins, and God does not require this from them. If you noticed that a child did something terrible: he stole, raised his hand against his mother, fought cruelly with his brother or sister, you need to say to him: “You know, this is a serious sin. You need to be sure to say this in confession.” But to force him to repent of any nonsense is wrong. It would be very good, if you go to confession with a child, to go to the priest first yourself, in front of the child, and tell him about what has happened to your child lately, because the child cannot always remember this, sometimes he can hide what something from the priest, and it is better that the priest already knows from you what he needs to repent of, what problems and difficulties he has - then confession can be more effective and the priest will be able to understand him better. Far from all priests are perspicacious, far from all read in the souls of people as in open books, and your hint will be very useful to them.

Now I will try to answer your questions.
Did I understand correctly that if in doubt, it is better not to go to confession?
You need to look at what kind of doubts, there are different kinds of doubts. To be honest, I never feel like going to confession, just as I don’t feel like brushing my teeth sometimes, for example. Maybe you have already become a habit, but somehow I'm too lazy to always do it. But to do this, of course, i.e. you need to go to confession.

If after confession unconfessed sins are remembered, is it possible to go to communion?
If there was a serious sin, then, of course, it is better to go to the priest. And if you repented that you were annoyed with your husband thirty times and remembered that there was also the thirty-first, then it may not be necessary to tell the priest. That's how you need to deal with it.

Do I need to detail my sins?
I spoke about it. Let's say, prodigal passion, excuse me, let's touch on this impure passion again. It is impossible to say: "I have a prodigal passion." You still need to say what it manifests itself. It is not necessary to describe in detail, there are different types of this sin, there is masturbation, it is necessary to say so about it. Or you watched some bad things on the Internet, I must say about it, about how long you watched for the priest to understand the degree of sin that has penetrated your soul, how it happens to you. Pride. How does it manifest itself, this pride? Do you humiliate other people, look down on everyone, did you beat someone, wanting to humiliate him? It must be said how it manifests itself.

I repent all the time of the same sins and commit them again... What should I do?
I think this is our common misfortune, we repent and sin again, but we must repent again, and start again, and we must try again, only you need to do it diligently, dear. Like an athlete: he sets the bar higher and higher, knocks it down, sets it again and knocks it down again, and then once - and jumped over. In my life, in any case, this has happened very often. I could not cope with some sin for a long time, I asked God, I tried, and the Lord delivered me from this sin. There was such a wonderful saint, true, of the Western Church, you know how he prayed: "Lord, save me, but not now." But the Lord saved him, he was numbered among the saints.

Can a monk be a confessor?
I think it can, but monks are different. It happens that monastics who went to the monastery at a young age do not know well family life and may give some wrong advice. It happens differently here. But in principle it can be.

Is it better to look for a confessor from the monastics or from the white clergy?
I had confessors both from monks and from the white clergy, it depends on the person, and not on what class he belongs to. There are very good priests in the world, but there are negligent ones, there are also people in the monastery who give completely wrong advice, terrible penance, some kind of bows for already confessed sins, and there are wonderful elders.

What if I want to confess with my confessor, but he lives far away and is very busy, and confession with other priests becomes a formality?
I think that you need to confess to your confessor, but there is such a danger, especially for girls, women, of emotional attachment to the confessor. Sometimes this leads to very serious consequences. Here it is necessary to distinguish spiritual attachment from spiritual connection with the confessor. How to distinguish emotional attachment? If there is jealousy, it is a sin, it is bad. If there is envy of others: the priest devotes more time to them, and less to me. If there is a desire for one kindness on the part of the confessor, and when he is strict, resentment against him appears. All this is a spiritual attachment, it is scary, this should not be allowed, you need to be very afraid of this. If there are any problems in the relationship with the confessor, you can approach the confessor of your confessor and try to resolve these issues with him.

If a person was baptized a year ago, is it necessary to repent of confession of sins before baptism?
I think that it is not necessary to repent of these sins, because these sins are forgiven, but if there is a desire to repent of them, if they torment, then you can repent of them, although they are baptized and forgiven.

Sometimes the sins of youth, confessed long ago, are very tormenting. Why?
I think that, perhaps, they have not completely repented of them, we must repent again. If you repeat them in confession, and they will torment you again, you just need to ask God for forgiveness in prayer, and it is not necessary to say them in confession.

What if you confessed on a pilgrimage and did nothing until the next confession?
Come up and say so: “I don’t know my sins, father, I don’t see,” maybe he will help, or say: “You will repent another time when there are sins.” I had such a case, I once said to my confessor: “Father! Somehow I don’t feel my sins, there didn’t even seem to be anything, ”he says:“ Well, that’s good, ”he covered me with an stole and that’s it.

Is a woman allowed to take communion if she has had an abortion?
When did the abortion take place? If it was made recently and if the woman who made it goes to church, she should not be allowed to take communion. In general, according to the canons, a very long penance is required. If a church woman had an abortion, if she went to church, confessed, took communion, and then had an abortion, I would before a year did not allow her to take communion. If she did it a long time ago and if she repents of it, promises that she will not do it again, says that if she were to return that time, she would not do that, then she must be given penance and communion after some time. If she says: “I have done it and would do it again,” then it is still impossible for her to take communion at all.

Why do some, despite the queue for confession, take the time of the priest and everyone in the queue with their detailed confession!?
I think that a person who stands for confession should not think about the queue, after all, one must somehow endure here. A person must repent before God, not thinking about what delays someone, you cannot rush a person. You know that the Lord leaves 99 sheep and goes after the lost one. So it is the same here, this lost sheep is in front of God at the moment and there is no need to worry about it.

When at confession you do not feel repentance for the sins you have committed?
There should not be a feeling, although it is good if it exists, but there should be an intention, an expression of will to correct sins. If at confession we cried, felt our sins, and then began to sin again, this is a bad confession, and if we did not feel anything, but did not repeat them afterwards, this is a good confession. This is how you should treat it.

How to confess before a wedding?
Before the wedding, you need to tell everything that happened in life, this is a very serious step, you need to have a detailed confession.

There are sins that there is no strength of spirit to correct. What to do, stay without communion?
This should be decided by the confessor, you need to tell him about it, if he allows you to take communion, then you can take communion. But there are sins after which it is impossible to take communion right away. If, for example, a woman lives with a man and they are not scheduled, she cannot take communion. If a person, say, takes drugs and is going to continue to take them - I think this should not be allowed before communion, he must promise that he will stop. Or if a person steals and does not return what was stolen, how can one receive communion? It is impossible in any case. If he committed the sin of murder and only a month has passed, he, of course, cannot be communed.

How do you know if you took communion in condemnation or not? What should be experienced after communion?
After communion, you need to sin less. If this works out, then you took communion not in condemnation. After communion, there are different states, different feelings. In general, it is wrong to look for some kind of feelings in the Sacraments. Our feelings should follow the intention to improve, and they do not always come immediately, our heart, distorted by sin, does not always feel something.

How to learn true repentance?
How to learn to walk? You have to walk, you fall, you have to walk again. How to learn to do something? Start again, do it again.

What is the best way to thank a priest after confession? Many people say that it is not worth giving money.
I think that it is not worth giving money after confession, you just need to say thank you, pray for the priest. If a priest needs money, if he asks for it, then maybe you can give it to him, but I don’t know such priests who would ask for money after confession.

There are sins from which I am horrified, what I have done, and some I don’t feel, and I don’t understand this. For example, once I was fond of astrology, but I have no fear from this.
Well, anything can happen, it happens, we do not feel horror because we have done some kind of sin, but we still need to repent of it, if we understand it with our mind. In general, our feelings do not obey us, they are out of control of our mind, we are sinful people, and we need to live, unfortunately, in some kind of internal disgrace. Especially because of this, do not be embarrassed, but repent of this and try to put your feelings in order with the help of repentance.

Metropolitan John (Snychev)

With the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow
and All Russia Alexy II

What is the main point of the post

The commandment to fast is the first commandment received by man after his creation.
Adam sinned by eating the fruits of the forbidden tree, and a terrible sinful corruption penetrated the entire human race.
From that very time, the devil gained access to the heart of fallen man. From that very moment, the perfect creation of God, Adam, who had previously known neither malice nor sadness, became subject to passions, in which our hearts, deprived of blessed communion with God, seethe until now, like in the tar of hell.
Isn't that why the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, having come into the world to save perishing sinners, beginning His ministry on earth, fasted for forty days and nights in the desert, reminding us by His own example of the beneficialness and obligation of fasting? Is it not for this reason that by rejecting the slanders of the enemy three times, He showed us the image of spiritual warfare, inevitable for everyone striving to combine the good fruit of fasting abstinence with inner spiritual growth?
However, in order to unstumblingly walk along the narrow path of salvation, avoiding the wide road leading, according to the Savior’s word, to destruction, one must clearly understand that sin is conquered not only by abstinence in food and carnal life, but by the purification of the heart and the zealous striving for the immaculate purity of the soul. In helping this holy striving, this grace-filled and beneficent zeal, is the main meaning of fasting.
"Turn away from evil and do good" (), – these words of Holy Scripture must first of all be remembered by all of us throughout Great Lent.
Unfortunately, even among church people there are now those who are lost and unreasonable, who do not understand the lofty spiritual meaning of Great Lent, who consider it sufficient and exhaustive for themselves to simply abstain from eating forbidden food.
Alas for us fools, and woe to us hypocrites!
Listen to yourself, you who do not eat meat: have you not grieved your neighbor? Have you not murmured against God in the sorrows and hardships of your soul? do you harbor resentment, anger, envy against anyone? Are you not proud of your imaginary virtues? do you thank the Lord for all that has been sent down to you? Do not vain earthly cares rule your heart?
Or - spewing meat from their meal, humbling the body - do you neglect your own soul, delaying to spew anger and hypocrisy, avarice and self-will, arrogance and pride from your heart?
The Holy Orthodox One terribly warns us that there will be no benefit to us from bodily abstinence if we do not combine it with spiritual abstinence - from evil, from passions, from sin that torments us.
Fasting from brashen, my soul, - we hear in Lenten prayers, - and having not cleansed your passions, you rejoice in vain in non-eating: otherwise it will not be your fault for correction, as if you will be hated by God from falsehood. (“In vain do you rejoice, my soul, in abstinence from food, while you are not cleansed of the passions: if abstinence does not become the cause of your correction, you will be hated by God”).

Great Lent - the way to follow Christ

The path of Christ is the path of every Christian. And I also want to tell you: the path that Christ the Savior took is the path of each of us Christians.
When the Lord called you and me into the bosom of the Church, when we received holy Baptism and then at a certain moment were blessed, when the Divine light touched our hearts, then we felt extraordinary joy and, as it were, were in the Zion chamber together with Christ. Then everything was bright and joyful, because the Lord strengthened our spiritual and bodily strength, so that we would taste and know how good the Lord is.
But our journey did not end there. We followed Christ further. The path of teaching followed, when we had to justify that Divine joy, that Divine grace that visited our hearts at the beginning of our feat.
Here we, like the apostles in their time, like Christ, met with all sorts of hardships, all sorts of difficult circumstances, and even began to waver. Or, like the unbelieving followers of the Lord, they even fell asleep at the moment of spiritual trials.
But in order to triumph over sin, in order to finally establish goodness in our hearts, it is required to follow Christ not only to the Garden of Gethsemane. It is necessary to continue the path to the house of the high priests Anna and Caiaphas, go to the praetor to Pontius Pilate and hear the terrible words: "Crucify, crucify Him!"
Further, the path will lead us to Calvary, so that here, together with Christ, we crucify our flesh with passions and lusts. On this path, we will be buried together with the Lord. Only then will the resurrection of our soul begin. Only then will the triumph of good in our hearts come. And our peace of mind will be even more affirmed when, having passed the way of the Cross, we receive the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
This is what we must and do experience on our path of salvation. This path is difficult, but they must go. To go, despite hardships and sorrows - both from our neighbors and from our sinful habits ... Sometimes we will not even know what to do. But if we zealously adhere to Christ's path and, calling on Divine help, go fearlessly to Golgotha ​​even until we are buried with Christ, the Lord will send us His Divine grace, strengthen our weak strength, help us overcome all sinful passions and instill in them good habits that will help us to achieve eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What does the parable of the prodigal son reveal?

Man is given the commandments of God, keeping which, he thereby acquires a grace-filled life.
But all the grief is that a person does not always appreciate this wealth - the fulfillment of the Divine commandments, from which his soul feeds. Sometimes such moments come when a person's love for his Source of life, love for his Creator, is depleted, and then everything that serves as food for the human spirit becomes, as it were, a burden to him. He tries to free himself, remove himself, throw off the burden of the commandments of God and take an independent path, live the way he wants.
In other words, a person separates himself from the Lord and goes into the arms of sin. This is the beginning of the fall.
So, the beginning of the removal from the paternal home is the cooling of love for God. A person is trying to cast off the good yoke of Christ and retire to a distant country, to a country of sin, where, as it seems to him, he will rejoice and rejoice without end. Sin draws in the human mind all the sweetness, all the charms of the world. He calls, beckons. And a person, not understanding this deception, leaves spiritual food and turns to animal food - to sin.
At first, while he has not yet squandered the inclinations of the grace of the Holy Spirit, he feels strength, life in himself. It is like a broken branch. After all, when a branch is separated from a healthy tree, it does not immediately dry out, but contains some juices received from the tree. And for some time this branch feeds on the remaining juices. Well, then? And then comes the well-known end - drying.
This is what happens to the man of sin. The person becomes impoverished spiritually. Everything that was given to him through the fulfillment of the commandments of God from Divine grace, everything becomes impoverished, abolished, and the person gradually dries up spiritually. There is a void in the human heart. This terrible sinful emptiness does not give a person a moment's rest. And then a person begins to rush about, looking for all sorts of entertainment, inflaming himself either with the lust of the flesh, or with pride, or with malevolence, malice, envy, money-grubbing and other sinful deeds. But all this does not bring satisfaction. And if it were not for the mercy of the Lord, what would have become of us, seduced by the machinations of the devil?! Even in sin, the Lord does not leave a person with His mercy. He in His Providence has many ways to bring us back to the right path. Sometimes these are very bitter medicines: difficult circumstances of life, illnesses, and need ...
But sending all kinds of sorrows, the Lord awakens a person, knocks on him: wake up, rise, man, you are in danger!
This is the area into which a person enters who has left spiritual food and turned to sinful food. He loses spiritual joy, empties himself and becomes a slave to sin. And if sin does not completely destroy the good beginnings in a person, then there always remains the possibility of awakening from the sleep of sin.
But it also happens that sin completely enslaves a person, so that he atrophies, loses the sense of spiritual perception and turns out to be incapable of any spiritual life, or any awakening. But if there is still a corner of good soil left in the human heart, then on this soil Divine grace casts its seed. And then comes the awakening. How does it come?
Like the gospel prodigal son. It is said: when he was languishing from hunger, he came to his senses. What does it mean - recover? It means to realize one's dangerous position, one's pernicious condition. Before the man of sin, by the grace of God, it is as if a veil is opened, and he sees himself standing on the edge of the abyss, so one more step - and he will inevitably fall into the abyss and perish completely. This is what is called recover.
When this happens, then the person begins to remember the former blessed life in the father's house.
The commandments of God, which once seemed very heavy to him, now take on a completely different color and evoke in his memory not bitterness, but sweetness. At this point, determination matures. The determination to rise up and move away from the abyss. it second stage of the action of God's grace on the human soul.
Then comes third, the saving stage of awakening is that when the prodigal son not only decided to return to his father's house, but got up and went, that is, he had already overcome sinful slavery in himself and with a feeling of deep repentance returned to his circle.
This is how saving repentance is done. This is what is required of us - to return to our father's house and pray to our Lord and Creator for forgiveness.
But remember: The Lord accepts only sincere repentance. Only in the case when a person realizes his fall into sin, humbles himself before his Creator and exclaims: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before You, I am no longer worthy to be called Your son, because I have violated all Your commandments, squandered everything that You have given me gave! Therefore, at least accept me as one of Your hired servants, so that I may work and receive the prescribed part of the food, eating which I could live. Only in this case the Lord returns to us bright clothes.
This is what the Holy One reveals to us in the week of the prodigal son. It reveals how a person, gradually moving away from the truth of God, finds himself in the realm of sin, reveals how the awakening and return to the paternal home takes place.
And I would like us to never leave our father's fence, so that the yoke of God would not be burdensome for us. It is essentially not burdensome. Do we not hear the voice of our Divine Savior: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is good, and My burden is light.” Here it is, the true word of God! If we fulfill the commandments of God with love and for the sake of love, then the yoke of Christ will be easy for us. Then we will not go to a distant country, then sin will not take possession of us, then we will not need to return.

What is repentance

Repentance is the greatest gift of God to man - the second baptism, in which, having been washed from sins, we again find the grace lost in the fall. When we are sinners, we become saints. It opens heaven to us, leads us to paradise. There is no salvation without repentance.
Repentance is not a public self-flagellation, but a hard and painstaking inner work to purify the heart from moral impurities accumulated there during the time of a scattered, negligent, graceless life.
Repentance means change the way of life, first of all, “come to your senses”.
It means to see sin in oneself: in thought, word and action, to realize it, to hate it, and then to use the grace-filled church means to eradicate it from one's being. Having lost the understanding of true spirituality, we have also lost a sound conception of this good.
Fruit of repentance correction, change of life.
A person must ruthlessly, with roots, uproot vices and passions from the soul, turn away from evil and untruth, approach the Lord and begin to serve Him alone with all the forces of soul and body.
Whoever repents and deliberately sins again, aggravates the guilt, "turning back" and trampling on the mercy of God. “The sins we have committed do not irritate God so much as our unwillingness to change,” says St. .

Why We All Need Repentance

In vain and fruitless will be the most exalted sermons and appeals, the most wise and well-intentioned advice, if we fail to actively apply them to our today's life...
No one knows how much more is left for us to come to our senses and improve, so everyone, without delay, without delay, ask yourself: “Am I not the cause of the present disgrace? Is it not my sin that keeps the Fatherland in the abyss of fall? Is it not my negligence that delays the bright moment of the resurrection?
Russian people, think sensibly - there is no one among us who could justify himself if he happened to answer these questions not before an earthly, biased and weak human court, but before the Omniscient and All-Perfect Judge.
Repent before it's too late! There are no innocents - "everyone is depraved, indecent bysha."
For several years now, according to all earthly laws and human calculations, Russia should be on fire civil war, perish in the darkness and smoothness of economic ruin, anarchy, lawlessness and chaos. What keeps her from this terrible fate? Our zeal and foresight? Not! Our vigilance, wisdom, courage? Not! Our unity, strength and fidelity to duty? Not!
The providence of the All-good God, trampling on the “order of nature”, crushing the inevitability of earthly laws and the calculations of highly experienced destroyers, keeps Russia on the edge of the abyss, merciful about our blindness and weakness, giving - once again! - time to think again, repent, change.
And what? Are we making use of this generous, undeserved gift? Alas, we are looking for excuses, seeing the reasons for what happened anywhere: in unfavorable historical conditions, in the betrayal of leaders, in the shortcomings of our neighbors, in external influence - but not in ourselves!
It is full to mock the truth - God cannot be mocked! We ourselves, with our vices and passions: lust for power and vanity, envy and hypocrisy, arrogance, exaltation and lack of faith, are the cause of all troubles!
Yes, the evil force that wants our destruction has modern world great power and authority. Yes, centuries-old experience of destruction, the diabolical art of corruption and deceit, was placed at its service. But that's no excuse!
He who does not feel sin behind him is mistaken immeasurably and perniciously. Everyone is to blame...
Remember everything: we will not repent - we will not be cleansed; we will not be cleansed - we will not revive the soul; if we do not live in soul, we will perish.

About choosing your path to salvation

Let's think about our choice. Let's think and look into our soul - are we creating an impassable abyss between us and God?
Perhaps, by our negligence, by our inattention to salvation, we atrophy the feeling of spiritual perception in ourselves and become incapable of perceiving the action of Divine grace? If this is true, then what bitter tears we deserve!
While we are still living here on earth, while God's long-suffering is still over us, until it is too late, let us understand the state of our spirit.
And if our heart reaches out to God, to holiness and purity, then let us strengthen this saving choice in ourselves!
If, however, we notice that lack of faith, doubt and other vices creep into our spiritual state, then we will be afraid of this! Let us be afraid of the disastrous abyss in which the rich sinful man found himself, and, invoking Divine help for ourselves, let us eliminate, as long as possible, the disastrous gulf between us and the Lord! Let's make a saving choice not only with our mind, but also with our heart!

How to achieve salvation

Salvation is achieved by the constant fulfillment of the commandments of God. So we set ourselves up to fulfill God's commandments, overcoming all difficulties on the path of salvation. And then the path of our salvation will be prosperous. Then the mercy of God will descend on us, strengthen us and save us from all evil. Then we too will attain eternal blessed life in Christ Jesus.

How to Learn to Love God

Why did the Apostle Peter not stand in love for Christ?
This happened because the love for God at that time was still with the Apostle Peter. carnal. She has not yet been sanctified by Divine grace and has not received strength from Divine love.
And if so, then there was no firmness in his determination, in his intention to follow Christ to Golgotha ​​to the end.
Yes, it is not easy to love God, we must love Him as the Lord Himself, the Savior of the world, commanded us.
Love for God is only real when it is based on humility when a person removes carnal imaginary love from his heart. What is the expression of carnal love? It is expressed in extraordinary self-produced delight. A person strains all his strength in himself to delight, excites his nervous system, and at the same time the blood boils, an extraordinary imagination and ardor arise. The ardor and fervor of blood and nerves - this is carnal love. Such love is not pleasing to God, for it is offered on the altar of pride. Such love is not durable, it quickly disappears.
Therefore, in order to have a constant spiritual love, need to love God humbly, humbly and strive to achieve spiritual love, which calms the nervous system, cools the impulses of our blood, and gives inner peace in a humble and meek spirit.
This is what Divine or spiritual love should be. How can we learn such love? It is possible to learn to love God on the condition that we do everything that the Savior of the world commanded us to the best of our strength and capabilities.
And not only perform, but also to arouse enmity within your heart against every sin that removes us from the love of God. This is the beginning of love for God.
But only the beginning. In order for this love to be affirmed and strengthened, it is necessary to constantly monitor yourself. And if ever, due to our weakness, we fall into this or that sin, then we must quickly get up and bring sincere tearful repentance.
In order for our heart to constantly abide in love, it is necessary to study in the Gospel the will of God, which the Savior of the world reveals to us, to know what the Lord wants from us, to know His good and perfect will and fulfill it until the end of our lives.
Only with constant fidelity to God, true Divine love is preserved in us. And if at some point in our lives we violate this fidelity, then we thereby violate the love of God. This inner relationship between God's love and our love will be interrupted.
Our love for God must be perfected from day to day. She receives a direct connection with God, enters into unity with Him, and through this unity receives consolation, enlightenment, exaltation.
But we must well understand that in order to achieve or strengthen this love for God, it is necessary to go through a certain path of testing, path of struggle - and above all with yourself. Why? Because within us is old man, smoldering in their lusts. Because it is necessary to kill this old man in yourself - to kill everything sinful. And when we begin to do this, then, naturally, the devil, the father of sin, will rise up against us to protect his property, and then a struggle will arise. Tough fight.
For example, in order to curb our tongue, how much strength, attention, energy is needed! Is it easy to conquer pride, pride, vanity, love of praise or any other sin? Of course, all this requires considerable efforts on our part, constant abuse.
But it is not only in inner temptations that our path passes. Remember what trials the apostle Peter underwent from the people! Don't we feel a similar fear when some people come to us with questions, “Do you believe in Christ? Are you Christian? Do you go to church?" And what do we answer? Don't we sometimes allow cowardice? Are we not sometimes afraid to confess Christ? We are pathetic at this time, not having the courage to declare that we are truly Christians who keep the commandments of God.
So, let's check ourselves, do we really love God? Doesn't it happen that we try to love God from our carnal wisdom? We excite our nerves, hot even in prayer and fasting. Yes, this happens in our life, especially at the beginning of our turning to God, when we, excited by this or that beauty of the Divine, admire, are excited, ready for any feat: fasting excessively, and praying a lot, and doing alms, and for our neighbors. look after. Everything seems to be easy for us! But then this impulse passes, and there comes a period when we are left alone with our natural capabilities. And here already there is not enough strength for any feats, because we still do not have Divine love, which is achieved by constancy and humility.
Remember that love for God is necessarily connected with love for your neighbor.
How do we know that we love our neighbors and the Lord? If we feel that the memory of malice has died out in us, then we are already on the path of love for our neighbor. If a peaceful, compassionate attitude towards our neighbor under any circumstances has been born in our hearts, then know that we are already at the very door of love for our neighbor and for God.
This is how we need to improve in spiritual love.

How to enter into fellowship with Jesus Christ

"Without Me," says the Lord, "you cannot do anything."
Indeed, this is true - in order to achieve eternal salvation, it is necessary to closely abide with Christ. And if a person fulfills this condition, then, undoubtedly, he will gain spiritual success. He will be perfected, will not only flourish spiritually, but also bear fruit of the spirit.
How does a person enter into the closest communion with Christ the Savior? Let's clarify this question.
Christ came to earth to redeem mankind from the curse of sin and death. And in order for a person to come back into union with his Lord, Christ, by His honest blood creates the Church. it His body, of which He is the head.
And through the Holy Spirit, through the third Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, Christ revives His church body.
Here through this Church, through the body of Christ, man enters into the closest communion with Christ the Savior. How is it done?
This is how it is done. Man believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, is the true Lord and true man. Having believed, he receives the sacrament of holy Baptism, and through this sacrament he enters the body of the Church, is cleansed of all sin, and receives quickening from the Holy Spirit.
But in order to constantly abide in this organism and become alive, it is not enough just to be outside. Not, one must co-dissolve, merge with the body of the Church, organically unite. To be united as a branch is united to a vine, and constantly quickened by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
And having entered into unity with the body of the Church, to strengthen this unity love.
This love is manifested in prayer, and in repentance, and in abstinence, and in compassion for one's neighbor.
But this is not enough. Love must also be manifested in constantly crucifying one's flesh with passions and lusts. And not only to crucify, but through deep humility and meekness, through constant communion with the Lord, to achieve the fruits of the Holy Spirit - reverence and truth.
And the fruits of the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle Paul testifies, are meekness, temperance, faith, love.
These are the fruits that we, who are in the body of the Church, need to achieve in order to constantly abide with the Lord.
If we do not strive for this, if we console ourselves with the fact that we, they say, have received Baptism and chrismation, and then let the Lord Himself guide us, then by such negligence we will break the mysterious thread that connects us with the Lord. And once a rupture occurs, then, naturally, our heart will dry up just as a branch sometimes dries up, which, although it is on the vine, is sometimes infected with something. And as our spiritual organism dries up more and more, removing itself from the action of the grace of God, to the extent of this we will subject ourselves to excommunication from the church organism. And then we will be like those dry branches that are separated and thrown into the fire.

How to prepare for a post

Now we are experiencing, like once captive Jews, a spiritual burden. And we remember, we often remember those sweet moments when the Lord visited us with His Divine grace, and, remembering, weep.
Spiritual slavery is very difficult. You need to get rid of it. But how? Only through repentance, through the constant aspiration of one's mind and heart to Jerusalem on high.
Just as the Jews could not sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land and did not forget Jerusalem, so we need to remember those moments of life when we faithfully served God and bear the fruits of repentance. And if we embark on this path, then, undoubtedly, we will free our soul from the shackles of sin and our spirit will sing again!
This is how, with the help of sacred pictures, our Mother Church helps to awaken our souls. And reminding of the danger of sinful captivity. The Church shows them the way to liberation. Indeed, we are left with you to cry, sob and cry out to our poor soul: “My soul, my soul, rise, that you sleep, the end is near!” Time is fleeting. Will you, my soul, have time to free yourself from slavery to sin? Will you have time to do good deeds that will justify you at the Judgment Seat of Christ? While the doors of God’s mercy have not yet been closed, wake up, my wretched soul, wake up and cry out to your Savior: “Merciful God, have mercy on me and cleanse me from all sin, clothe me with the garment of righteousness in order to strengthen myself on the right path of salvation and glorify You with a pure holy heart and mouth now and forever and ever!”

How to test your conscience

At the gates of the Kingdom of God there are special gatekeepers who will check our inner luggage.
What is it filled with? What is more in our heart: good or bad?
It will take a considerable amount of virtues to let us into the Kingdom of Heaven, into the life of the next century.
And we, if we carefully examine our luggage, will surely find that we will not find virtues in the daytime with fire, but perhaps we will not embrace sins in our arms. So how can we get into the Kingdom of God, which is not entered by wide gates, but by very narrow ones?
Continually review the luggage of your soul! Think about whether there are sins in it that we can begin to get rid of right now, filling in the empty spaces with the necessary virtues! For this, it is necessary to wake up from sinful hibernation, as St. Mary of Egypt once awakened. And the Lord our Savior of the world is calling us to this.
So let us wake up from sleep, feel the danger of perdition and retire into the desert of righteousness. And there we will arm ourselves patience generosity, let's arm ourselves love let's arm ourselves prayer and measured abstinence, trust in the will of God!
Only under such a condition will a spiritual transformation take place in us. Only then will all sins be thrown out of our hearts and drowned in the abyss, and only good deeds, our good dispensation will remain - that foundation that will make us worthy of the Kingdom of God will remain.

On the Need to Forgive Offenses Before the Beginning of Lent

Fasting is, as it were, the threshold of heavenly life, the threshold of triumph.
But in order to achieve triumph, you need to go through the threshold, where the heavenly servants will check each of us and ask: With what baggage do you want to celebrate Holy Easter or enter the Heavenly Hall?
If your burden is a sinful nature, then do not dare, man, to meet the bright Resurrection of Christ and enter the Heavenly Chamber with a joyful heart. Heavenly servants will take you and cast you into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Lent is a special time when we must carefully look at the state of our soul, the state of our spirit. What is the soul obsessed with? Is there something akin to it that connects us with heavenly life? Or, perhaps, there is nothing good left there?
So, we are on the eve of Great Lent. We already want to enter the field of the feat of spiritual and bodily abstinence. Will we be able to adequately pass this test, will we be able to whiten our clothes, cleanse them of all sinful filth and enter the Heavenly Chamber, so that we can rejoice and rejoice with all those who please God?
Let us remember the man who, as it is said in the Gospel, did not appear at the wedding feast in festive clothes. Although he entered the house, having been invited, he heard the terrible verdict of the House Master: “Cunning servant, how dare you enter here not in wedding clothes? Take him and cast him into pitch darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
You see how this man, although he passed through the doors, but without cleansing himself with tears of repentance, without washing the dirty clothes of his soul, was cast out of the bridal chamber.
The same can happen to all of us, if we do not mourn for our sins, if we do not whiten our clothes with tears of repentance. How terrible it will be then to hear the Divine voice: “Get out of My bright chamber, get away from Me, all those who do iniquity!”
So that this does not happen, so that we hear the joyful, comforting voice of our Creator and Lord: “Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord!” Let us strive to work worthily in the field of Great Lent. Work so that the heart weeps, so that tears wash away all the filth and dirt of sin, cleansing the temple of our soul for the Holy Spirit, strengthening us on the path of salvation.
Let us begin our laborious path to the bright Resurrection of Christ with forgiveness of all offenders.
It is necessary that everyone forgive each other unhypocritically, sincerely, to the end, without leaving a drop of irritation and annoyance with their neighbor in the hidden corners of their hearts. Without this, it is impossible to observe bodily and spiritual abstinence, and such a fast is displeasing to God.

On Communion During Great Lent

The days of Great Lent are a saving time, a time when the Divine word removes the veil of sinful night from our eyes and we enter into the realm of light, into the realm of spiritual work.
What do you and I need in these great days? What is needed is an ardent desire to free ourselves by divine grace from the bonds of sin and enter into close union with virtue. It is necessary to do what the holy Apostle Paul tells us: put off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Let us heed the apostolic voice and with a joyful heart we will enter the days of the Holy Forty Days. Let us embark on the path of struggle against all kinds of sinful inclinations, let no one be shy, let no one be afraid of the saving feat. I know that there is much work to be done before we achieve deliverance from the bonds of sin, but let this not intimidate us. The Lord is with us, the Lord is near us. With the Lord it will be easy for us. So, let's get down to spiritual work!
I bless each of you to determine your bodily and spiritual capabilities and impose on yourself the feasible bodily abstinence, paying the main attention to the purification of your soul. Try to speak and accept the Holy Mysteries three times: on the first week of Lent, on the fourth and on Holy Week - on Maundy Thursday.

How to start spiritual development

The spiritual virtues are eradication from your heart of irritability, anger, rancor, condemnation and gaining generosity and patience, purity of soul.
These virtues will help us in our work spiritual improvement. Without them, our salvation will be in doubt. Therefore, it is necessary for us to practice spiritual virtues as well.
In essence, we have not yet worked in this area, allowing ourselves to go with the flow of life and not striving to establish control and exercise within ourselves in these great virtues.
So, we need to direct our spiritual gaze to this side of our life with you. Because here we lose a lot if we do not properly practice the spiritual virtues. We do not eradicate in ourselves irritability neither anger neither memory of malice, neither condemnation, nor other spiritual vices and do not acquire virtues instead: meekness, humility and generosity.
Oh, how I long for all of us, from today, to gradually begin to practice in eradicating sinful habits from our hearts! To cultivate in the soul the fragile sprouts of this or that spiritual virtue! I would like that from today we begin to fight first of all with irritability, anger and remorse.
Why are these sins so necessary for us to abolish? Yes, because these vices: irritability, anger and resentment - prevent us from acquiring high virtues, prevent us from walking the saving path, prevent us from doing good for the sake of God, for our neighbor.
Think about it: how can you, having irritation, anger or rancor in your heart, calmly follow, for example, a rule of prayer?! Never in such a state will we offer a sincere prayer, because irritation and anger, and even more so rancor, will surely defile in us the purity of our inner eye, the purity of prayer. And every time we begin to pray, every time the thought of irritation and anger will mentally return us to that offense, to that insult that our neighbors have inflicted on us. To return with such force that we will not be able to refrain from evil. Thoughts will inspire us that the offender annoyed us not casually, but with a purpose, but isn’t there a demon in him? And so the enemy will arouse evil thoughts in us without end, in order to finally destroy the purity of prayer in us. So think about it, is it possible to perform a pure prayer when we are irritated? No, no and NO! Can we have a good disposition towards our neighbor, having anger and rancor against him? Can we then condescend to his infirmity? Can we in anger not envy his happiness, well-being? Or grieve if the one who offends us has some kind of misfortune? ..
That is why I want us to begin our feat with a struggle against irritability, anger and rancor. How to accomplish this difficult undertaking for good? How to overcome these passions? This question is answered by the spirit-bearing fathers, who themselves went this way and pointed out to us the means by which we could really learn to overcome irritation, anger and vindictiveness in ourselves. After all, what happens in our life? Someone said some insulting word to us, and we immediately allow irritation, or, as the monk says, embarrassment, and we begin to reason: why did he say this to me? Apparently he wants to hurt me. Well, wait, I'll repay you with the same coin! This is how irritation occurs. And if we do not defeat it immediately, then it will turn into anger. And in order to overcome irritation, it is necessary, as the pious monks did, to bow to the neighbor who grieved you, and say: forgive me, brother or sister, that I caused such irritation in you! And thereby quench embarrassment in yourself and prevent it from taking root. If we do not do this at the very beginning, then irritation will take root and turn into anger, which, burning in us and burning out, will leave behind a whole heap of hot coals, ready to ignite at any moment, even after many years.
So how do you overcome these sins? Only love. As the holy fathers say, in moments of confusion, we must pray for the person who offends us, turn to God for help with a prayerful cry: “Lord, have mercy on my brother and by his prayerful intercession have mercy and save us from the wiles of the enemy!” This is how we should act, then neither irritation, nor anger, much less vindictiveness will take root in us.
Test yourselves, my beloved children! For example, today we seemed to be praying, but we almost did not ask for the eradication of anger and irritation in ourselves. Essentially, no. See how carelessly we strive!
We, it turns out, are not ready for this feat. So how can we succeed in spiritual virtues if we do not practice virtues at all? Even any mundane art requires constant participation. After all, it is not in words that we learn with you, for example, to cook food, sew or cultivate a garden! We listen to advice, see how others are doing, and then try to do it ourselves.
It doesn't work very well in the beginning. And then? Then we gradually acquire this or that skill and become good, skilful cooks, seamstresses, gardeners... But if practice is required in worldly affairs, then how do we want to master the art of arts - spiritual virtues - without exercising in them?
I want all of us, with the help of God, to start daily setting ourselves up for the struggle against sin and for the acquisition of spiritual virtues. Only with an effort on our part can we eradicate this or that sin in ourselves or protect ourselves from the fall of sin and acquire this or that virtue.

How to start cleansing your soul

Our main concern is to notice in our actions, in the movement of our hearts, certain sinful inclinations.
And not only notice, but also make efforts to eliminate these sinful inclinations. This is all our labor on the path of salvation - purify your heart, transform your soul, planting in it everything good, everything holy, everything that is the basis for the future life.
Keep in mind that nothing unclean will enter the Kingdom of God. As the apostle Paul says: “Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor corrupters, nor drunkards, nor foul-mouthed people can inherit the Kingdom of God.”
That is why our main feat on the path of salvation consists in cleansing our souls from all sinful filth and in planting good Christian habits. And we need to fight very firmly and thoroughly, fight constantly and invariably. In this matter, it is useful to educate yourself in such a way that you always check what spiritual state we are in. Have we ascended the steps of spiritual perfection, or have we only just approached them, or, on the contrary, have we moved away from these steps and turned back to the path of sin, to the path of perdition?
In addition, we need to have more spiritual experience and check ourselves - are we deceived in our hope for eternal salvation? Maybe we think that we have mortified every movement of sin in ourselves, but in fact this sin still reigns in our heart, in our soul, dominates over our forces, both spiritual and bodily.
We struggle very, very weakly to mortify our sinful tendencies. And passions, of course, dominate inside our hearts, inside our souls. And how they dominate! Scary to say. How they command us, how they rule and lead us to every iniquity, to every fall. And we, like dumb sheep, are led to the slaughter, but not to Christ, but to sin.
Look each one into your own heart and there you will really see the abyss of your sinful inclinations. How much malice, hatred, envy, irritation, pride, vanity, love to be praised, and much more are in our hearts. But is it enough just to see your own sins? No, the Church does not only call us to this in order to see our own sins, but also calls us to arm ourselves, to arm ourselves against sin. Armed firmly, armed diligently, in order to root out every sinful movement from within.

How to start healing your soul

Idleness is the basis for the devastation of our spiritual gifts. And if we look into our hearts, into our souls, we will see that after we weakened in attention and in good will, a heartfelt bitterness, desolation.
So the question arises: how is this so? After all, we have accepted holy Baptism, received holy chrismation, we visit the temple of God, as if we are praying, but inside ourselves we do not experience joy, nor strength of spirit. Why is this happening?
Because our spirit with you has weakened in attention, weakened in good deeds and perceived an inner desire for spiritual, sinful peace.
And to the extent that we strengthen ourselves in this striving for sinful peace, to the extent of this we drive out the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit from our hearts. As we do so, we lose heavenly joy, heavenly affirmation from our heart. That is why we experience devastation of the heart in our hearts.
And in order to free ourselves from such a state, we need to work and work. Look not only at yourself, but also look at the sorrows and needs of your neighbor, try, to the best of your ability, at least to a small extent, to alleviate their spiritual and bodily sorrows.
We need to practice good deeds. And if we practice good deeds, it will undoubtedly be expelled from our hearts. the spirit of idleness, the spirit of despondency, the spirit of desolation. And instead of all this, Divine love will kindle - love for good deeds, love for that which is the basis of the future life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How to deal with pride

The main sin that almost all of us, without exception, are obsessed with is the sin of self-exaltation or the sin of pride.
This is the greatest serpent, which very subtly enters our hearts, and sometimes even transforms into a bright angel, and whispers to us that which separates us from Divine love, which removes us from union with God. And we, like innocent sheep, are caught by this evil serpent of pride and are led to the slaughter.
Pride is a great sin. This sin once brought down a bright angel from the height of glory and turned him into an enemy to God, turned him into an evil angel, into Satan. Pride brought down Satan from heaven and cast him into the abyss of destruction. And not only this luminous angel was overthrown by pride, but even many famous people Church of God.
The opposite of pride is humility. This is the greatest virtue, which undoubtedly helps us on the path of spiritual ascent, it does. The humility of many has led to salvation. And this greatest virtue was taught to all ascetics of piety, for they thought that without humility it was impossible to please God. To come into the real consciousness of ourselves in order to really realize that after all we are sinful people - this is already a great thing. Not only say that I am a sinner or a sinner. No, this is not enough. But to come to full consciousness, the inner consciousness of the feeling that we really are sinful people, and since sinners, can we then condemn someone, or annoy someone, or contradict or object to someone, and even more so on anyone to get angry or angry? Of course not. Here it is, greatness of humility. And if we accept all this and try to fulfill it in our lives, that is, to reject pride in ourselves, and to accept true spiritual humility, that is, the thought and feelings about ourselves that we are not such great ascetics, but we are sinners both before God and before people; if, I say, we perceive such a mood of spirit, then, believe me, we will undoubtedly succeed on the path of salvation.

How to acquire patience

The great work that you and I must do, beloved brothers and sisters, is surely patience. It is not for nothing that our Lord Jesus Christ clearly announced this: "In your patience save your souls." And this greatest virtue lies at the basis of our salvation, at the basis of other virtues. We need to perceive it not only with our minds, but also with our hearts in order to realize it in our lives and with the help of this virtue overcome all sorts of obstacles on the path of salvation.
If we look at ourselves, we will see what kind of spiritual weakness we are in. Indeed, we are very weak. We cannot always patiently endure this or that sorrow, which, by the permission of God, befalls us, endure it magnanimously. Look, grief has just come upon us, how we are already falling into despair, we are falling into cowardice and dropping our hands, weakening our legs and falling, not wanting to withstand this or that trial sorrow.
But the venerable and spirit-bearing fathers looked at sorrows as something good, as something necessary in the work of our salvation.
Consider the teachings of the Apostle Paul. He tells us that through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God. And then he testifies not only about himself, but also about the apostles: we boast of tribulations, because tribulation gives birth to patience; patience is an art; art is hope, and hope does not shame.
You see how the spirit-bearing and God-bearing fathers and, in particular, the holy apostles looked at certain sorrows in the world. This means that they saw in sorrows not only some kind of hardships, hardships, both moral and physical, but also saw something sweet in them, something that one can even boast about. And all this only because they saw through their minds the essence and significance of certain sorrows and, of course, endured these sorrows magnanimously. The Lord certainly helped them.
"Three times I the apostle Paul said, I prayed to God that the Lord would drive away the angel of Satan from me, and the Lord answered me that My strength is made perfect in weakness. My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Do you and I ever say to God like this: “Lord, we are ready to endure everything, both sickness and sorrow”? I'm afraid to believe we're saying this. No, perhaps we never say, but always hear groans and sighs: “Lord, why did You punish me?” A little sickness, whether the head hurts a little, whether the throat or some other member of our body hurts, we already groaned: “Oh, oh, Lord, it’s hard.”
Well, how to get rid of it? You see, we do not have enough patience, it turns out. Of course, it is necessary to get rid of the disease even by natural means, resorting to medical art, but, however, even here it is necessary to rely entirely on Divine Providence. If the Lord is pleased to heal us even through natural medicines, then, of course, our bodily organism will be restored. If the Lord wants us to bear the feat of patience in illness, then here it is necessary to show generosity and complete submission to the will of God.
That's what I wanted to tell you. To tell you that we should acquire the great virtue of patience and that in our patience we would save our souls. Whether the Lord visits us with this or that sorrow, let us not lower our hands and weaken our legs. Let's not relax our hearts and groan and groan, but just say: “God, that means. It is so pleasing to you, help us endure this sorrow magnanimously, so that we do not weaken in patience and not be deprived of Your heavenly blessings.

How to learn to be ruthless

Without forgiveness, without the eradication of rancor, peace of mind is impossible! Because malice produces in the mind a storm of thoughts against our neighbor - a storm of passions that turns everything inside us, uproots everything good, destroys almost to the ground all the sprouts of virtues. We ourselves are not happy about this unfortunate storm, which comes from resentment towards our neighbor. And if this storm arises, can we then perform any pious deeds? Even the feat of abstinence in food, even the prayerful feat, even helping one's neighbors, even generosity and humility? No. Then no feat is possible, because the storm of malice in our heart will sweep away all our good intentions, and no good will be subject to us.
That's the law sin and especially sin resentment, irritation.
That is why the great ascetics of Christ's Church tried to destroy even the slightest manifestation of the sin of malice. Because if you give space to his movement, then, I repeat, he will destroy to the ground all our good dispensation. In addition, the venerable fathers also remembered the commandments of God: “Blessed are the peacemakers”, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will be called the sons of God and they will see God.” They also honored the apostolic commandment: "Let not the sun go down in your anger." That is why they sought to root out the sin of malice at its very source.
I would like these pious rules of ascetics to become a guide in our life. And if any of our neighbors offend us, we will not allow malice to rule in our hearts! Remember that otherwise the enemy of the human race will immediately take advantage of our weaknesses. He will undoubtedly inspire us that the offense is too great and unforgivable; will inflate, as they say, small into big, to represent an elephant from a fly.
Anger, having entered the heart, will not give us rest either day or night, neither at prayer, nor at work. It will sharpen our hearts, so much so that we, as they say, will get completely out of the rut.
Look, don't give place to the devil! And if we notice in our hearts an insult to our neighbor, then we hasten to reconciliation, if only this is possible.
True, it also happens that a person asks for forgiveness, but the offended does not forgive. In this case, leaving everything on the conscience of our neighbor, let us begin to purify ourselves before God and before people.

How to treat enemies and offenders

God's commandment to be patient says: "The one who endures to the end will be saved" (). And we forget it completely. We are tormented by inner heart torment: how dare you offend us? But how did they say such a mournful word to us? Well, why did they do it? Are they good people? So we begin to sort out everyone, and forget the commandments of God.
How we want people to think and say only good things about us. It is, of course, good when people say good things about us, provided that we are truly good and, above all, humble people. What if we don't have humility? There is no real virtue, but only one appearance of virtue, do you think it's good that then people say good things about us? No, the Savior of the world directly said: "Woe to you when all people speak well of you."
Yes, precisely grief, because a person who inclines his ear and heart to the glory or praise of man is not established in goodness. And it is enough just to say something humiliating or regrettable about such a person, as he immediately changes both in his face and in his mood. That is why the monk advises us, if only we want to be saved, if we only want to achieve a spiritual dispensation for real, then we must create in our heart such a mood to be like the dead - not to think of insults or glory. Treat both equally. Now, if we have such a dispensation, then, of course, then we will be firm on the path of salvation.

On the spiritualization of worldly life

In order to incline the heart to holiness, to create, as it were, an abode of the Divine Spirit, so that thoughts rush to the mountain through the visible world, the great ascetic of the Russian land, the saint advises us to spiritualize every thing, that is, to compose some kind of good reflections with every thing, to put a spiritual meaning into some ordinary thing.
Here's how it's done. Let's say you notice a stain on your dress. Immediately turn your gaze to grief and say to yourself: “Look, it’s not good to show yourself in such a dirty dress to people, but how can you appear before God with a defiled soul? Wouldn’t it be a shame to stand before the immaculate Judge and Creator?” And then mourn your sins, and stop yourself.
So it is necessary to act in all other worldly affairs. If something does not work out in business, say this: “You see, it is difficult to achieve success in worldly affairs, but how do you want to achieve eternal salvation without difficulty, being in laziness and negligence?”
The monk marked each place for himself with names from the Holy Scriptures.
The river that flowed nearby was named by him Jordan. The hills that were nearby, he called one Tabor, the other - Eleon. So, with every geographical subject, he combined gospel stories.
And every time he came to the river, his thoughts immediately turned to those events that the Holy Gospel tells about - to the Baptism of the Lord. If he climbed a hill, he mentally imagined Tabor and the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so his mind was always elevated to grief.
If we want to please God, let us try to put into practice in our lives the advice of the spirit-bearing ascetics of Christ's Church. Let us spiritualize material deeds with soul-saving reflections, and then every thing will direct our minds to grief.
Do not put off doing this for some future time! Start today. Come and determine, spiritualize literally everything: cooking, rest, our relationships with each other ... Believe me: how easy it will be then to improve spiritually and endure all sorts of troubles that happen in our lives! Then, God willing, we will be able to educate ourselves in true piety and be worthy of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

On the voluntary acceptance of sorrows

Before our mental eyes appears a terrible picture.
After Pilate condemned Christ the Savior to be crucified, the soldiers took Jesus and, placing a cross on Him, led him to Golgotha….
Christ meekly bears the cross. Simon of Cyrene helps him in this. And here it is, Golgotha. A great and terrible event is taking place here. Christ is nailed to the cross and with Him two thieves.
One is on the right side, and the other is on the left.
But unlike the thieves, the Divine Teacher endures the torments of the cross not for his own sins. He accepts suffering voluntarily in order to redeem humanity from the curse of sin and death. The Lord nails and tears apart the handwriting of the sins of all people on the cross and washes away these sins with His life-giving blood. There is a reconciliation between God and man. The redemption of the human race is taking place. And on both sides of the Savior, criminals hang on crosses, having defiled themselves with various atrocities. How do these robbers relate to their torments and to the sufferings of Christ?
At first, both robbers bore blasphemy out of their mouths. But soon their opinions were divided. One of the robbers, who hung on the right side of Christ the Savior, was imbued with compassion for the God-man, and the other, who was nailed on the left side, was left with a darkened mind. He continued to blaspheme the God-man, addressing Him with these words: "If you are the Christ, then save yourself and us." Then another thief, who felt in his heart the mystery of the sufferings of Christ the Savior, rebuked him: “Or are you not afraid of God when you yourself are condemned to the same thing? And we are justly condemned, because we received what was worthy according to our deeds, but He did nothing wrong. And after that he turned to Christ with a prayer: “Remember me. Lord, in your kingdom." And since his prayer was sincere, coming from the depths of a contrite heart, since the prudent robber recognized himself worthy of this execution on the cross, since he truly, inwardly repented of his crimes, then Christ answered his prayer with these words: “Now you will be with me in paradise."
Thus, the prudent thief, although he shed a lot of human blood, although he caused many sorrows to people, but, having accepted suffering on the cross, received retribution for all his evil deeds and, having been cleansed by repentance, received justification from the Lord.
So, we stand on Golgotha ​​and see how the redemption of the human race is being accomplished. Here we comprehend the great truth that it is necessary not only to realize one's sins, but also to voluntarily take upon oneself certain sorrows and sufferings in order to atone for one's sins. Only then will our correction truly take place. Of course, if we take the path of the second, unreasonable robber who blasphemed the Savior to the end, if we challenge God and say: “Lord, why are You punishing me, it’s like I didn’t do anything bad in my life?”, - if we grumble at the Lord for the sorrows sent to us, then, naturally, these sorrows will not bring us any benefit in the matter of salvation and our repentance will not be accepted by the Lord, but will be rejected.
We need to truly repent...
It is necessary every time when we allow this or that sin, to impose on ourselves feasible bodily and spiritual labors, which will serve to purify our souls.
If we reject all sorrows, considering them undeserved, if we begin to justify ourselves before God, then our repentance will be in vain.
We have something to punish. Look closely at your actions. After all, we do a lot of bad things. And how little good we do! Very little. Yes, and those good deeds that we do are sometimes defiled by our own conceit or pride. And, even sadder, when we commit sin, we often do not even feel remorse. In doing so, we become stagnant in sin and forget about the purification of the soul.
But the Lord calls us to repentance! Because of His love, He does not want our death, and therefore He sends us certain sorrows in order to awaken you from a sinful sleep. So that when we wake up from oblivion, we reproach ourselves and recognize our weaknesses. And as soon as we realize our sinful nature and dispose ourselves to meekly endure all kinds of trials and sorrows, then the goodness of God will be given to us, which will enter our hearts, strengthen us and establish us on the path of salvation.

one). Determine the order of nutrition for children and adults for the entire period of Lent and ask the priest to bless the observance of this order;

2) determine the procedure for watching TV (from restriction to complete exclusion), using a computer for non-work purposes;

3) increase the duration of personal (family) prayers;

4) set a time for personal or family reading of Orthodox literature suitable for everyone;

5) set a time for coming to the temple on weekdays, prepare for participation in divine services

6) Doing good.
It would be nice to visit someone who needs your help, to make a donation to some good cause. Also, do not forget to visit the lonely and infirm for Christmas greetings. Let's not forget that spiritual struggle is not a goal, but only a means for acquiring virtues, becoming like Christ.

7) Don't make promises.
About abstaining from some kind of sin, a bad habit “on Lent”: if this is a sin, then you need to get rid of it forever. So, for example, if you have “problems” with alcohol and you take a vow not to drink during Lent, this means that you will look forward to Lent all the time.
booze, not a Christian celebration of Christmas.

8) external behavior.
You should avoid the external manifestation of your feat. Be friendly and calm. At the same time, try to be meek so that no negativity comes from you. One of the signs of an incorrect fast is irritability, anger. The Lord commanded us: "When you fast, do not be despondent like hypocrites" - let no one know better and not
sees what we eat or don't eat in Lent. If we do it for the glory of God, then let the Lord alone know it.

9) Discretion.
Pride has two extremes: either everything or nothing. And the proud cannot go the middle way. Everything should be in moderation so that our body does not interfere with our mind to pray. It is impossible to become perfect in one post, but you can and should approach perfection
at least one step during each Lent. Fasting in food is within the power of every Christian, but its severity varies. One measure for monks and clergy, the other for the laity. The ability to fast comes with time, from Lent to Lent, a gastronomic fast is more a school than an exam.

10) Communion in Lent.
It is advisable to confess and take communion several times during Lent.

11) Components of the Post.
Fasting as abstinence can be divided into: informational, spiritual (entertainment), gastronomic, marital.
Modern man is overfed, crammed with information, Fasting should limit this flow, scattering feelings and thoughts. The condition for proper fasting is the abstinence of the senses. You need to beware of idle talk, entertainment and fuss.
Fasting is a good reason to finally quit smoking, to recover from TV and computer addiction.

12) Food composition.
The food we eat during the Fast should be as simple as possible. When discussions about squids and other delights begin, this is already cunning. It can be said that the Lenten feat begins not when we sit down at the table, but when we come to the store.

13) Posting degrees.
Dry eating, use of vegetable oil.
There are five degrees of gastronomic fasting. Depending on the physical health a Christian can agree on his norm with a confessor. In recent years, many scientific research eating certain foods
with various diseases, specify whether, without a cutlet, a fatal outcome will inevitably await you, as the district doctor claims?
It must be remembered that our Rule is monastic, from the southern latitudes. Few people think why on some days the Charter prohibits
on the vegetable oil(xerophagy). And the reason is that instead of oil in southern countries they eat olives, and in monastic practice it was perceived as an excess to include vegetable oil in their lenten diet. You can draw this parallel: do not delight your palate with apple juice, eat apples. Need with
reasoning to take on fasting gastronomic exploits.

14) Thoughts about food.
Food should not occupy our mind during Lent. Try not to think about food at all; turn food exclusively into a physiological process, removing the aesthetic component.
Let's not forget that hunger is not in the stomach, but in the head. When you really want to eat, offer yourself a piece of black bread with
water, so you can easily check if you are really hungry.
Do not believe crafty thoughts that food is not the main thing in fasting, you can stop fasting, but actively start doing good
affairs. Nothing will stop you from doing good deeds without a piece of cheese in your stomach.
Violationpost.
It is never too late to fast or resume a broken fast. In case of failure, do not fall for the crafty trick of quitting the Post this time, but start next time (next year)
fast "for real". Despondency is not the best adviser, do not succumb to provocations. For some reason, it is believed that spiritual life is something that should happen by itself, and when a person “stumbles” for the first time on the path to God, he immediately gives up. Nevertheless, there are principles and regularities in the spiritual life as well. For example, asceticism is a practice, and asceticism is already a scientific discipline. Therefore, approach fasting wisely, studying the experience of the holy ascetics.

Fighting passions.
Many have noticed that as soon as Lent begins, temptations immediately begin. Well, these temptations must be gratefully
accept. After all, thanks to them we see where our weak spots. Do not eat on time - we become irritable. We hear reproaches addressed to us - we are offended. We do not have time to do what we promised - we lose heart. This does not mean that we have become worse. Just
The Lord gives us at least a little bit to see ourselves in the true form. What we see is the starting point for working on oneself, a topic for confession, a subject for correction.

Family relationships.
It is wrong to think that the family only distracts from Lenten achievement. The purpose of the Fast is to increase love for all people, among
whose family is closest to us. During Lent, we will focus on paying more attention and warmth to our loved ones, spending more time with our families.

Peace with neighbors.
Without this, the entire work of Lent becomes meaningless. It is no coincidence that we enter Great Lent through Forgiveness Sunday. You should try to reconcile with everyone before Lent and after that categorically avoid conflicts. Postpone any potentially conflicting showdown until after Lent. Be vigilant, it is in the Post that potentially conflict situations can literally haunt you!
There is an anecdote about robbers who killed a traveler and found bread and bacon in his knapsack. They ate the bread, but did not touch the fat. Because it is a sin to eat fat in Lent.

Unbelieving relatives.
Fasting should not become a source of quarrels in the family when one of
spouse has not yet come to the need to fast, while the other sincerely desires this.
Try to find a common language with your neighbors, explain to them the meaning of the Fast. And it is very desirable that they notice in you not only the refusal of food, but also warmth and love for them.

18) Reading Scripture.
It is very good to read the Holy Scriptures more often during Lent, despite the fact that it is customary to do it every day at any time of the year. But also
here, too, exorbitant feats are not necessary.

Home prayer.
Prayer in Lent must be performed strictly. Try to use fasting as a school of prayer. Learning the Jesus Prayer. At any time, you can pray the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Sometimes you can hear a horror story that the Jesus Prayer is forbidden only for monks and laity, otherwise you can easily fall into delusion. I will say more, for a layman, even plain water can be deadly... If you immediately drink a bucket. :) That is, the problem is not in prayer, the problem may be in its unreasonable application.

prt. Konstantin Parkhomenko

For someone who decides to fast for the first time in their life, everything may seem extremely simple. Well, those who have been fasting for more than one year are preparing for the next difficulties.

After all, they understand that for 7 weeks you need to refrain not only from food of animal origin, but also from many other temptations. They only hope that God will again help them to spend these almost two months before Easter worthily.

The experience that was gained during previous posts is a good thing. But it is he who is the main rival, he is often called crafty. He improves with a person and studies his weaknesses well.

The need for fasting

The first commandment of God that man received was the commandment to fast. Ever since Adam ate the forbidden fruit, the devil has access to every person's heart. Adam and all his numerous descendants began to be subjected to passions. Jesus Christ himself, who came to save mankind, at the very beginning of his great service in the name of salvation, wandered in the desert for forty days, thereby reminding us of the necessity and beneficialness of fasting.

Three weeks

You need to start preparing for the fast three weeks before it starts. This year, the main post for the Orthodox begins on March 11.

1st week

• 1st preparatory week - from 17 to 24 February. It is called the "solid week". At this time, all types of fasting should be canceled.
• February 17 is the first of four preparatory Sundays. This day is called the Week of the Publican and the Pharisee.
• And February 24 is the second preparatory Sunday. Its church name is "The Week of the Prodigal Son".

2nd week

• 2nd week - from February 25 to March 3. Its final day is the 3rd preparatory Sunday. Its name is “The Week of the Last Judgment”.

Pancake week

And finally, the final week - from 4 to 10 March. Many people know that this last week before Lent is called “Maslenitsa”. However, it is often called "cheese week".

During Maslenitsa, many who are going to fast try to eat as much as possible, arguing that then for seven whole weeks they will no longer have such an opportunity. But this is not entirely correct.

Maslenitsa ends on the fourth preparatory Sunday. This day is popularly called Forgiveness Sunday. And its other name is “Cheesefare Week”.

Training

The main thing to do when preparing for a post is to correctly assess your strengths. If they are overestimated, disappointment can quickly arise, and then a complete rejection of the post.

The goal in front of you should be set only feasible. Otherwise, everything will just become meaningless. If there is uncertainty that the fast will be observed for all seven weeks, then you should not start it.

Strict and non-strict fasting

It is also necessary to decide in advance how exactly the fast will be observed. After all, compliance with it can be strict or non-strict. In the first case, it is necessary to refuse all food of animal origin, including fish, as well as oil.

And with non-strict observance of fasting, you can eat everything, with the exception of dairy and meat products. And you can even eat fish. However, on Wednesday and Friday it is also recommended to refuse this food.

Strict fasting is undoubtedly the most difficult. And therefore, not everyone is recommended to follow it. Even if a person is very religious, he can limit himself in food only partially. Every priest will say that a person should not take on such duties, the fulfillment of which is not possible.

Can you eat fish?

As for fish and all the dishes that are prepared from it, this food is forbidden during strict fasting. There are only two days in which it can be consumed.

The first day is the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos, celebrated Orthodox Church always on the same day - April 7th. And the second day when you can eat fish is Palm Sunday. This holiday is transitional. The time of its celebration depends on Easter itself. It is always celebrated on the last Sunday of Lent.

It is not necessary to fast strictly for those who have never fasted before. Such a sharp restriction in food can adversely affect health. It is better to make your first post in your life non-strict. And only then, next year, you can begin strict observance of fasting.

Forgiveness Sunday

The last day of Maslenitsa is Forgiveness Sunday. On this day, the preparation for the post should be fully completed. Traditionally, believers ask each other for forgiveness for all the offenses that were inflicted earlier. Asking for forgiveness cannot be denied. If the offense was too great, then the person should say: "God will forgive."

Beginning of the post

The first day of the Easter fast is always Monday. It is called Clean Monday. This is one of the toughest days. The clergy on this Monday refuse to eat at all. Anyone who is still not able to do without food for a whole day can eat bread with salt.

That is, it is best to eat raw food that has not undergone any heat treatment. It can be fruits, dried fruits, vegetables, nuts. Well, meat, fish and dairy products, of course, are strictly prohibited.

When compiling Lenten menu you can choose the usual dishes that were consumed before the start of the post. But only preliminary products of animal origin should be excluded from these dishes.

"Post feat"

Many people are familiar with such an expression as “guard feat”. You do not need to take it literally and set yourself goals that you most likely will not be able to achieve.

Be sure to consider your age category.
There is no need to fast according to the "method" of other people, that is, to project someone else's practice onto your body and soul.
Particular care must be taken with those recommendations and books that are sold in huge numbers and are talked about a lot.

Conclusion

Assessing their capabilities, a person should understand that the existing rules of fasting are more recommendations than mandatory measures. And the main thing in fasting is not even abstinence from food, but abstinence from all other sins.

During these seven weeks before Easter, you must, first of all, cleanse your soul: show patience, remain humble, do not use foul language, and pray more often. And the diet fades into the background. Every Christian knows that the soul remains young forever.

For her, there are no such concepts as “young” and “old”. The soul has no time. She is eternal. But the body in which the soul resides, on the contrary, tends to grow old. It inevitably gets weaker with age. Therefore, so that it does not weaken even more, perhaps you should not limit yourself to food.

Abstinence from food of animal origin should not lead to a deterioration in health, but to the vision of one's sins and to the understanding that they must be got rid of.