PRAYER “Our Father” - the essence and meaning of prayer in my understanding

In this article I will try to convey MY understanding and meaning of the prayer “Our Father” from I. Christ. on our blog . And let me start by emphasizing: I DO NOT CLAIM TO THE TRUTH. For the truth is within each of you. And its name is your feeling of LOVE.

Any prayer is an ordinary SET OF WORDS on paper. Therefore, the conditional result of reading a prayer depends on several parameters: WHO reads this prayer, HOW he reads it and what PURPOSE he pursues. The fact is that what REALLY works in prayer is not the word itself spoken by a person, but the ENERGY invested in this word. One person reads a prayer FOR LOVE. And every word he uttered resonates in the heart with a feeling of LOVE. Another person reads a prayer OUT OF FEAR, into a state of humiliated servility. And thus he moves even further away from God and from love.

Orthodox theologians: The lengthy Orthodox catechism of Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) writes: “The Lord’s Prayer is the kind of prayer that our Lord Jesus Christ taught to the apostles and which they passed on to all believers.” He distinguishes in it: invocation, seven petitions and doxology.

My understanding: The Lord's Prayer is the legacy that Jesus Christ passed on to his apostles. It's right. But I. Christ himself is not God.

Our Father who art in heaven!

Orthodox theologians: Summoning - “Our Father who art in heaven!” Faith in Jesus Christ and the grace of man’s rebirth through the sacrifice of the cross gives Christians the ability to call God Father. Cyril of Jerusalem writes: “Only God himself can allow people to call God Father. He granted this right to people, making them sons of God. And despite the fact that they withdrew from Him and were in extreme anger against Him, He granted oblivion of insults and the sacrament of grace. Note "who is in heaven" is necessary in order to begin to pray, “to leave everything earthly and corruptible and lift up the mind and heart to the Heavenly, Eternal and Divine.” It also indicates the location of God.

My understanding: APPEAL - "Our Father" traditionally considered an appeal to God. But this immediately raises the question: “WHAT exactly does a person reading a prayer mean by the word God?” I. Christ clearly and clearly said: “God is LOVE. And everyone needs to look for God in their hearts, like love.” And by the appeal itself "Our Father" Christ emphasized his relationship with God and said, “I am the SON of God.” Just like all other people are sons and daughters of God. And before God EVERYONE IS EQUAL. Along with this, I. Christ said, “I am the SON of man.” And with this Christ emphasized his kinship with all people. Speaking of the fact that he is the son of his earthly parents. And he is no different from other people. In simpler terms, we are all both men and sons of God. Faith in God, and even more so in Jesus Christ, as well as religious faith itself, has nothing to do with the right to call God father. For EVERYTHING IS SO ORIGINALLY ORGANIZED and is so in its essence. That is, it was created “IN IMAGE AND SIMILARITY.” Hence my understanding of the “Our Father” address is partly an appeal to oneself, as to the creator of oneself.

"He who is in heaven": Heaven as such is NOT the place of God. This judgment is WRONG.
I. Christ said “And do NOT separate heaven from earth, for it is a continuation of the earth, so do not separate yourself from the earth, for you are a continuation of it, and it is a continuation of you. That’s why I say: you are the beginning of everything and the end of everything. When you see this, then you will see the Kingdom of God. Everything living and non-living seems to be invisibly connected with each other, and everything individually is part of the whole! The Kingdom of Heaven is ALWAYS HERE, but you don’t know HOW to enter it... And the heaven I’m talking about is INSIDE everyone and OUTSIDE everyone, and the Kingdom of God is in this sky and no other. And you don’t have to go far to get it, and they won’t say: “here, it’s here,” or: “here, there.” For the Kingdom of God IS WITHIN EVERYONE!!! There are some who will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God.”
The earth represents the feminine, sensual and material. The worldly path of human development. The sky represents the masculine, spiritual. The spiritual path of human development. I. Christ emphasized - ALL IS ONE. And man is the beginning and the end of everything. And a person must develop HARMONIOUSLY in two directions. Both material and spiritual.

In my mind "SKY" to some extent is the personification of the FACE of God. Look: God is ONE and Heaven is one. God is one, but many-faced. That is, it constantly manifests itself in everything and never repeats itself in its manifestations. The sky is also one, but the pictures of the sky itself are constantly changing. And at the same time they also never repeat themselves. If several people simultaneously look at one cloud floating across the sky, then each of them will most likely have their own associations with what they saw. For some, the outline of the cloud will remind one of an animal, for others a fish, for others a bird, and for others some other image. Day gives way to night. Day represents LIGHT, night represents DARKNESS. In the summer, the day is longer than the night; in the winter, the night is longer than the day. And at the same time, EVERYTHING IS IN HARMONY AND CONSTANT MOTION. Now try to mentally replace the words “Light is day” with the word “good”, and “Night is darkness” with the word “evil”. And you will be able to GET INTO THE ESSENCE OF THINGS.

Hallowed be Thy name. May Your Kingdom come. Thy will be done. As in heaven, so on earth.

Orthodox theologians: petitions. In the words of Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov): “The petitions that make up the Lord’s Prayer are petitions for spiritual gifts acquired for humanity through redemption. There is no word in prayer about the carnal, temporary needs of a person.”

"Hallowed be thy name". John Chrysostom writes that these words mean that believers should first ask for “the glory of the Heavenly Father.” The Orthodox Catechism indicates: “The Name of God is holy and, without a doubt, holy in itself,” and at the same time can “still be holy in people, that is, His eternal holiness can appear in them.” Maximus the Confessor points out: “We sanctify the name of our heavenly Father by grace when we mortify the lust attached to matter and cleanse ourselves from corrupting passions.”
"Thy kingdom come." The Orthodox Catechism notes that the Kingdom of God “comes hidden and inward. The Kingdom of God will not come with observance (in a noticeable manner).” As for the impact of the feeling of the Kingdom of God on a person, Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes: “He who has felt the Kingdom of God within himself becomes alien to a world hostile to God. He who has felt the Kingdom of God within himself can desire, out of true love for his neighbors, that the Kingdom of God will open in all of them.”
. By this, the believer expresses that he asks God so that everything that happens in his life happens not according to his own desire, but as it pleases God.

My understanding: "hallowed be the name". There is an expression: “God has thousands of names.” That is, so many that you can’t even count them. And in fact this is true. The fact is that EVERY Soul (Higher Self) in God at the ninth level has ITS own NAME. This name can be READ. But only that person who has ACHIEVED the appropriate level in his Spiritual Development can do this during his lifetime. Imagine this picture - against the background of the ABYSS, a series of red fiery hieroglyphs, which, as if alive, move from right to left along a line in front of your eyes. This name is not pronounced, it cannot be expressed in words. This name can only be read by your FEELINGS. The spectacle itself is simply amazing. And if you see it once, you will never confuse it with anything else. Such a person begins to GLORIFY one of the many names of God in the world and during life. Carrying this name within yourself as YOUR OWN. Just as I. Christ did in his time. Praise God with words, as is our custom now. This means CREATE APPEARANCE and thereby waste your time in vain and without benefit.

I. Christ said: “Who do you listen to and who do you go to church to worship? And who are the most revered people in it? Scribes? Pharisee? High priests? All of them, no matter how many of them came before Me, are thieves and robbers and worse. For it is not your bread or your gold that is stolen, but your life itself. They honor God with their lips and tongue, but their heart is far from Him. And they are like painted tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and all uncleanness. And those hypocrites close the Kingdom of Heaven to men, for they themselves do not enter it and do not allow those who want to enter. And they like people to call them: teacher! teacher! Don't call them teachers. They are blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. And for centuries they have been hiding the keys to true knowledge and replacing them with half-truths, which they dress up in the clothes of Truth, and therefore they are more dangerous and terrible than lies.”

"Thy Kingdom Come". The Kingdom of God is a feeling of LOVE in the Soul. And to be in the Kingdom of God means to live with a feeling of love. A person who has felt the love of God within himself can indeed become alien to the world. Due to the fact that he begins to look at things DIFFERENTLY. A person hostile to God is a person who lives in condemnation and RENUNCIATION of his feeling of LOVE for the sake of his human values. Such as morality and morality, which people put ABOVE their own feelings. Therefore, I. Christ said: “Judgment without mercy will not create mercy.” But before others, a person hates himself. And thereby renounces self-love. A person who lives by self-hatred distances himself from himself, and therefore from God. A person who has felt the love of God within himself can help other people feel the same.

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”- IMHO. Here we are talking about “Freedom of choice”. Initially, God gave EVERYONE freedom of choice. The essence of this freedom is the feeling of love. Most people live by passions and renunciation of the feeling of love, that is, from God and from themselves. And for this reason THEY SUFFER. But with all this, they look for the cause of their suffering not in themselves and in their own choices, but in other people or in God. According to their NAIVE understanding, someone God must intervene in the earthly affairs of people and stop their suffering. And some are so naive that they expect a miraculous “salvation” from HIGH. Considering that they suffer undeservedly. It is advisable for such people to first understand a few simple truths, which sound like this: “There is no point in blaming God (the mirror) if he himself has a crooked face,” “Saving a drowning person is the work of the drowning person himself,” and “Water does not flow under a lying stone.” . And “belief in miraculous salvation from above” is SUPERSTITION and has nothing to do with true faith. All this is ordinary SELF-DECEIPTION, which in turn is also the “Free choice” of every person.

One of the most powerful human fears is “Fear of choice.” A person living in fear shifts his choice to God and thereby tries to escape responsibility. As a result, a person’s choice is made by his own fear, that is, STRESS. Which lies at the root of human suffering. Thus, a person chooses suffering for himself, and blames God for it. From here follows a simple conclusion, which sounds like this: “The choice of man himself is the choice of God.” And “an attempt to avoid a choice, which is also an attempt to deceive oneself, is also considered a choice made.” THERE IS ALWAYS A CHOICE AND THIS CHOICE IS ALWAYS FREE. THE CHOICE THAT REPRESENTS A FEELING OF LOVE IN YOUR HEART IS CONSIDERED THE ONLY CORRECT CHOICE. And even if you once made the wrong choice, you can always CHANGE YOUR MIND and CHOOSE AGAIN.

Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors.

Orthodox theologians: . In the Orthodox Catechism "daily bread"- this is “the bread necessary in order to exist or live,” but “the daily bread for the soul” is “the word of God and the Body and Blood of Christ.” In Maximus the Confessor, the word “today” (this day) is interpreted as the present age, that is, the earthly life of a person.
In this petition, debts refer to human sins. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) explains the need to forgive others their “debts” by saying that “Forgiving our neighbors of their sins before us, their debts, is our own need: without doing this, we will never acquire a mood capable of accepting redemption.”

My understanding: “Give us this day our daily bread”. I. Christ said “Do not worry about tomorrow. Let tomorrow take care of itself.” And also: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by the word of God.”

A person needs two types of energy to develop. The first is material, rough “Daily Bread”... Food, water, housing, clothing and so on, associated with the development of the physical body. The second is spiritual. This is a more subtle energy associated with the development of the Soul. Fear of the FUTURE is driving modern humanity into the abyss... Many sacrifice their spiritual development for the sake of their material development. And then they themselves suffer. And at the same time they do not understand that “tomorrow” may not come at all for them. So, in order to lead people out of the mad race of acquisitiveness, greed and thirst for profit, I. Christ said - “FOR THIS DAY”, that is, FOR TODAY, and not for the whole century - as GREEDY people want. Regarding spiritual food, Christ said this: “Ask God for the Holy Spirit and it will be given to you.” For the energy of the feeling of LOVE is the food of human Spiritual Development. By “the word of God” we mean the very TEACHING of I. Christ “On love and forgiveness.” But in itself, the flesh and blood of Christ has nothing to do with food for the soul.

“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” In fact, here we are talking about the very art of FORGIVENESS. The ability to forgive is an important aspect of the process of Spiritual Development itself. People don't know the art of forgiveness. Therefore, most people forgive only in words, but continue to hate in their hearts. A person in prayer asks God to forgive him only those debts that the person himself was able to forgive other people. And everything is fair here. BUT! At the same time, you should remember that you yourself need your forgiveness first of all. And you need to forgive first of all yourself, and not others. And if a person was able to forgive himself, then he will forgive the same to others. And if you couldn’t, then there is NO petition. There is only FARS, from which there is no benefit to the Soul, only harm. Forgiveness of oneself frees the Soul from the burden, removes the stone from the Soul. And without a feeling of LOVE, forgiveness is impossible. Read more in the books of the author Luule Viilma “I forgive myself”...

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Orthodox theologians: "lead us not into temptation". In this petition, believers ask God how to prevent them from being tempted, and if, according to the will of God, they should be tested and purified through temptation, then God would not completely give them over to temptation and not allow them to fall.
"Deliver us from evil." In this petition, the believer asks God to deliver him from all evil and especially “from the evil of sin and from the crafty suggestions and slander of the spirit of malice - the devil.”

My understanding: "lead us not into temptation". A person is tempted not by the will of God or the devil, but by his own. And only in order to understand the LEVEL of your Spiritual Development. By itself "TEMPTATION" is a kind of TEST for SINCERENESS OF INTENTIONS. For me, the main temptation is RENUNCIATION OF LOVE, in the name of human values ​​and concepts. Which, as a rule, is followed by UNFORGIVENESS and, first of all, of oneself - this is the first. Secondly, anyone can trip and fall. But not everyone can get up and continue on their way. And if you “fell,” then FORGIVE YOURSELF for your fall and LOVE YOURSELF in your FALL. Otherwise, you simply won’t be able to pass. Third - if you fall and cannot get up, then LOVE YOURSELF lying and helpless. And only then can you get up and move on. HE WHO IS AFRAID OF FALL IS NOT ABLE TO WALK.

I. Christ said: “Don’t be afraid to get lost when you look for your way, only the strongest are capable of this. And the Shepherd loves those who have left the flock more than others, for only they are given the power to find the cherished path.
It is not the cattle’s fault that they are in a pen, because the owner built the pen for them. Man, to his own shame, did what no living creature is capable of: he built a prison for himself with his own hands and placed himself in it.”

"Deliver us from evil". In my understanding, the “evil one” is by no means an evil spirit or the devil. And this is an infinite number of SELF-DECEIPTS in which modern humanity finds itself. Self-deception is LIE TO YOURSELF, HYPOCRISY and FALSE WITNESS. To succumb to the “evil one” means to wishful thinking and thereby fall into the web of your own LIES about yourself. The most powerful LIE in this world sounds like this: “I am a good and kind person who forgives everyone and everything. And he wishes only happiness and goodness for everyone.” You can add to this: decent, intelligent, well-mannered, educated, and so on. Doesn't change the essence. And if you consider yourself as such, then KNOW - YOU ARE IN YOUR ILLUSION and YOU STILL DO NOT KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT YOURSELF.

I. Christ said: “You must first KNOW YOURSELF. When you know yourself, then you will be KNOWN and ACCEPTED by the Most High, and you will know that you are the son of the living Father. And through you, as through all his creations, He reveals himself. When you know yourself, then you will find your true self and all the secrets that are hidden from you will be revealed to you. If you do not know yourself, then you are in poverty and you are poverty. Not only to believe, BUT CHECK EVERYTHING ON YOURSELF, to find and KNOW - that’s what I call for. And what you have learned, there is no longer any need to believe. He who has everything, needing himself, HAS NOTHING!!!”

You should also remember that someone God will not ask anything from you. You ask yourself and this trial is the most terrible. His name is SELF-JUDGMENT. That’s why people say: “Trust in God, but don’t make a mistake yourself.”

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Orthodox theologians: Doxology - “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen". The doxology at the end of the Lord's Prayer is contained so that the believer, after all the petitions contained in it, gives God due reverence.

My understanding:“For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen". This doxology actually contains the main ESSENCE of the entire prayer. In other words, it sounds like this: “LOVE RULES THE WORLD” or “ALL IS LOVE.” The fact is that God does not need service, worship and worship because God is SELF-SUFFICIENT.

I. Christ said this: “God is not far from each of you. But YOU SHOULD NOT think that you will find HIM in descriptions or sculptures that received their image from human art and invention, for then the CREATURE is worshiped instead of the CREATOR. The Almighty DOES NOT live in TEMPLES MADE BY MAN, and HE DOES NOT REQUIRE THE SERVICE OF HUMAN HANDS, FOR HE HAS NO NEED FOR ANYTHING. Heaven is his throne and earth is his footstool. And man does not need a man-made temple to speak with God, for the house of the Most High is the whole earth and the sky, and the stars, and all people... IF YOU DO NOT SEE GOD DURING YOUR LIFE, THEN YOU WILL NOT SEE AFTER!!! But try NOT to see God HIMSELF, but Divinity! The Divinity in which He manifests Himself in all things, the Divinity with which the entire universe is filled.”

Sincerely, Vladimir Veter.

“Be careful not to do your alms in front of people so that they can see you.”. ()

Exposition 6:1–15. Vanity imperceptibly attaches itself to virtue. – God looks at the intention of the one who does good deeds. - How one should do alms and prayer. – The Savior’s commandment does not prohibit prayer in church. – Decency must be observed in church during prayer. – What is required from the person praying is not a loud cry, but heartfelt contrition. – Consistency in prayer. – Why do we need to pray if God knows our needs? – Calling God Father contains the teaching of all virtue. - Explanation of the Lord's Prayer. – Forgiveness of offenses is primarily commanded by Christ. – It most of all likens a person to God. – Prayer for revenge on enemies angers God. – Remembering your own sins is the best way to learn to forgive offenses.

1. Finally, the Savior drives out the most destructive passion - vanity, this frenzy and rage, which even virtuous people are possessed by. At first He did not say anything about this passion, because it would be unnecessary, without convincing him in advance to fulfill what is required, to teach how to fulfill it and achieve perfection. But when He has already taught piety, then He destroys that ulcer that inconspicuously infects him. This disease, indeed, does not arise suddenly, but only when we have already fulfilled much of what we have been commanded. So, it was necessary first to instill virtue, and then to destroy the passion that damages its fruit. How does the Savior begin his conversation? A word about fasting, prayer and almsgiving, because vanity is predominantly associated with these virtues. So, for example, the Pharisee became proud of fasting when he said: “I fast twice” in Week, “I give you a tenth” from the estate (). And in prayer itself he sought vain glory, creating it for show. When there was no one else, he tried to prove himself to the publican. "I'm not like other people, he says, or like this publican"(). Now look how the Savior begins His word. It’s as if he wants to talk about some kind of beast, very cunning and scary, which can suddenly grab someone who is not entirely careful. “Look,” he inspires, “ do not perform your alms in front of people". So Paul says to the Philippians: "beware of the dogs"(). This beast approaches secretly, and everything good that is inside us quietly flutters and insensitively carries away. So, after Christ offered a rather lengthy word about alms, presented as an example God, who sends the rays of His sun on both the evil and the good, and in every possible way encouraging the listeners to this virtue, convinced them to give generously, He finally pours out everything that can harm this good olive tree. Therefore he says: “See that you do not perform your alms in front of people”, since the alms that were previously spoken about are the alms of God. And saying: “don’t act in front of people”, added: "so they can see you". The last words seem to mean the same as the first. But if anyone carefully examines, he will see that the last words mean something else, and contain great forethought, ineffable care and protection. Indeed, even one who does good before people may not do it in order to be seen, just as one who does not do it before people can do it in order to be seen. That is why God punishes or crowns not our deed itself, but our intention. If such a precise division had not been made, then the present commandment would have led many to bewilderment regarding the distribution of alms, because not everywhere it is possible for everyone to give alms secretly. Therefore, freeing you from such a necessity, the Savior assigns punishment or reward not for the accomplishment of the deed, but for the intention of the creator. So that you don’t say: what good does it do me if someone else sees it? – Christ says to you: I do not demand this, but your thoughts and way of action. He wants to correct the soul and free it from every disease. So, having forbidden giving alms for vanity and showing the harm that comes from this, the futility and uselessness of such alms, He again excites the thoughts of His listeners with the memory of the Father and heaven, so as not to limit themselves to just pointing out the harm, but to enlighten them with a reminder of His Father. “It will not be for you,” He says, "rewards from your Father in heaven". However, he did not stop here either, but goes even further, inspiring in other ways the greatest disgust from vain glory. Just as above He pointed to publicans and pagans in order to shame their imitators by the quality of their faces, so here He mentions hypocrites. “When,” He says, “When you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do.”(). The Savior says this not because the hypocrites had trumpets, but wanting to show their great madness, ridiculing and condemning them with this allegory. And he called them hypocrites well. Their alms had only the guise of alms, but their hearts were filled with cruelty and inhumanity. They did it not out of mercy towards their neighbors, but to gain glory. It is extreme cruelty to seek honor for oneself and not relieve the misfortune of another when he is dying of hunger. So, the Savior demands not only that we give alms, but also that we give it the way it should be given.

2. Having thus exposed the hypocrites and touched them in order to shame the listener, Christ again heals the soul suffering from the disease of vanity, and, having said how one should not do alms, shows how one should do it. How should one create? "Let him not know", He says, “What does your left hand do?”(). Here again He does not mean hands, but intensifies His thought: if it is possible, He says, not to know yourself, and if it is possible to hide from the very hands that serve you, then try about it. Therefore, those who insufficiently explain these words think that the Savior commands them to hide from bad people. Here He ordered to hide from everyone. Pay further attention to what reward is promised. Having mentioned the punishment awaiting hypocrites, the Savior also shows the glory that awaits those who give alms in secret, in order to both arouse His listeners and lead them to high teaching. He inspires that God is present everywhere, and that our deeds are not limited to this life, but that after this life we ​​will appear at the terrible judgment seat, give an account of all our deeds and receive either honors or punishments, and that then neither small nor great the matter cannot be hidden, even if during real life, apparently, it was hidden from people. The Savior hinted at all this when he said: “Your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly.”(). He will reward you when he presents you with a great and sacred sight, when he gives you what you now desire in great abundance. What do you desire, He says? Is it not to have someone as a spectator of your deeds? So here’s your audience – the God of all things Himself, and not even angels, not archangels. If you want to have people as your spectators, then at the appropriate time He will fulfill this desire of yours, and even satisfy it in the greatest abundance. If you want to show yourself now, you can only show yourself to ten, twenty, or a hundred people; and if you are trying to hide now, then God himself will announce you to the whole universe. So, if you especially want people to see your virtues, then hide them now, so that everyone will see them with greater honor when God makes them obvious, reveals them and proclaims them before everyone. Those who see now will probably accuse you of vanity; and when they see you getting married, then not only will they not blame you, but everyone will be surprised at you. Thus, if you can receive the greatest reward from God and surprise everyone, for this only after a short time, then think what madness it would be to lose both, and, asking God for a reward for your good deeds, try to show them people, while God Himself looks at them? If you really need to show yourself, then, first of all, you need to show it to the Father, and especially when the Father has the power to both crown and punish. Even if God did not punish for vanity, then even then it would be indecent for a seeker of glory to exchange God for people, forcing them to look at their own deeds. Who would be so pitiful that, having neglected the king, who was in a hurry to see his brilliant exploits, he wanted to be visible only to the poor and beggars? That is why the Savior commands us not only not to show ourselves, but also to try to hide ourselves from others; and not having the desire to show oneself and having the desire to hide are not the same thing. "And when you pray", continues the Savior, “Do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners, so that they may appear before people. Truly I tell you that they are already receiving their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and, having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret.”(). Here too He calls those who pray with vanity hypocrites. And quite rightly so, because while they pretend to pray to God, they only look at people, and thus present themselves as not praying, but as funny people. He who wishes to pray, leaving everyone behind, looks only to the One Who is able to fulfill his request. If, having left Him, you wander over various objects and turn your eyes everywhere, then you will leave empty-handed - because you yourself wanted this. Therefore, the Savior did not say that such people would not receive a bribe, but that they would receive their own bribe, that is, they would accept a bribe, but only from those from whom they themselves desire. It is not God who wants this - on the contrary, He himself would like to grant a reward from Himself - and they themselves, seeking rewards from people, are no longer worthy to receive it from Him for Whom they have done nothing. Look at the love of God when He promises to give rewards even for those benefits that we ask Him for. So, Jesus, both in the reasoning of the place and in the disposition, having denounced those who pray in an inappropriate manner, and showing to what extent they are ridiculous, offers a better image of prayer, saying: "come into your room", and thus promises a reward to those who pray.

3. Well, you ask, shouldn’t we pray in church? And very much so, but only depending on the intention. God always looks at the purpose of works. If you enter a cage and close the doors behind you, and do it for show, then even the closed doors will not bring you any benefit. Look, and here what exact definition the Savior used when he said: "to appear before people"! So, even if you have closed the doors, He wants you, before you close them, to drive out vanity from yourself, and to shut the doors of your heart. Being free from vanity is always a good thing, and especially during prayer. If even without this vice we wander everywhere and are carried away by our thoughts during prayer, then when we approach prayer with the disease of vanity, then we ourselves will not hear our prayers. If we don’t hear our prayers and requests, then how can we beg God to hear us? And, however, there are people who, despite all such instructions, behave so badly during prayer that, although they themselves would not be visible, they make everyone aware of themselves with their obscene cries, both by their appearance and their cry. making themselves funny. Don’t you know that if someone does this in the market place and asks with a cry, he will drive away the one whom he asks, and when he begins to ask calmly and decently, then he will sooner attract to himself someone who can show him mercy? So, let us say prayers not with body movements and not with a cry of the voice, but with a good and sincere disposition; not with noise and uproar, not for a show that could drive away others, but with all meekness, contrition of heart and unfeigned tears. But are you grieved in soul and cannot help but cry out? On the contrary, it is natural for someone who grieves greatly to pray and ask, in the way I said. So Moses, when he was grieving, prayed in this way, and was heard, which is why God said to him: "why are you crying out to me"()? Likewise, Anna, although her voice was not heard, received everything she asked for, because her heart cried out (). And Abel not only silently, but also dying, prayed, and his blood made a voice louder than a trumpet. Rise up, too, like this saint: I do not forbid. Tear off, as the prophet commanded, your heart, not your clothes; call God from the depths. “From the depths,” says David, “I call upon You, Lord”(). Take a voice from the depths of your heart, make your prayer a secret. Do you not see that even in the royal palaces all noise is prohibited, and there is great silence everywhere? So you, as if entering a royal house, not earthly, but more terrible - heavenly, show great decency. You are in the company of angels and in the company of archangels, and you sing with the seraphim. And all these heavenly faces maintain great decorum, and sing their mysterious sweet singing and sacred songs with much fear to the King of all, God. So, unite with them during prayer, and be jealous of their mysterious deanery. You don’t pray to people, but to the omnipresent God, who hears you even before your voice, and who knows the secrets of the heart. If you pray like this, you will receive a great reward. “Thy Father,” says the Savior, “seeing in secret, he will reward you openly”; He did not say: he will give you, but he will reward you. Thus, God made Himself your debtor, and thereby again honored you with great honor. Since He is invisible, He wants yours to be the same. Next, Christ offers the very words of the prayer. “Praying,” He says, “don’t talk too much like the pagans” create (). When Christ spoke about alms, he only eliminated the harm that comes from vanity, and did not offer anything more, for example, he did not say that alms should be done from righteous labors, and not from what was stolen and collected by covetousness, because this was well known to everyone, and the Savior had already pointed this out earlier, when he gratified those who hungered for righteousness. Speaking about prayer, He also adds something so as not to say too much. And just as He ridicules the hypocrites there, so here He ridicules the pagans, in order to shame the listener with the example of low people. Since comparison with rejected people especially saddens and hurts a person, the Savior thereby warns his listeners against vanity and verbosity during prayer. And by verbosity we mean idle talk here, for example, when we ask God for indecent things, such as: power, glory, victory over enemies, a lot of wealth, in a word - completely useless for us. “For your Father knows”, speaks, "What do you need" (.).

4. Moreover, here, it seems to me, the Savior forbids prolonged prayers; however, long not in time, but in the number and duration of the words, since we must wait with patience for what we ask: “constant in prayer”, says the apostle (). Moreover, the Savior himself, with the parable of the widow who bowed down the merciless and cruel judge with the persistence of her request, and the parable of the friend who came untimely at night and raised him from his bed, not out of friendship, but out of persistent petition, commanded nothing less than that everything is unceasing must pray to Him. However, He commanded not to send prayers composed of numerous verses to Him, but simply to open our petitions to Him. He pointed this out in the words: “for they think that because of their many words they will be heard; for your Father knows what you need.”(). And if He knows, someone will say, what we need, then why do we need to pray? Not in order to show Him your needs, but in order to bow to Him; so that through constant prayer we can unite with Him, in order to humble ourselves before Him, in order to remember our sins. “Pray like this”, the Savior continued: "Our Father who art in heaven"(). See how He immediately encouraged the listener, and at the very beginning remembered all the benefits of God. In fact, the one who calls God Father, by this one name already confesses forgiveness of sins, and liberation from punishment, and justification, and sanctification, and redemption, and sonship, and inheritance, and brotherhood with the Only Begotten, and the gift of the Spirit, so just as someone who has not received all these benefits cannot call God Father. So, Christ inspires His listeners in two ways - both by the dignity of what is called, and by the greatness of the benefits that they received. When he says, “in heaven,” then with this word he does not imprison God in heaven, but distracts the one praying from the earth, and places him in high countries and in mountain dwellings. Further, with these words He teaches us to pray for all the brothers. He does not say: My Father who art in heaven, but - “Our Father,” and thereby commands us to offer prayers for the entire human race, and never have in mind our own benefits, but always try for the benefits of our neighbor. And in this way he destroys enmity, and overthrows pride, and destroys envy, and introduces love - the mother of all good things; destroys the inequality of human affairs and shows complete equality between the king and the poor, since we all have equal participation in the highest and most necessary matters. Indeed, what harm comes from low kinship, when by heavenly kinship we are all united, and no one has anything more than another: neither the rich more than the poor, nor the master more than the slave, nor the boss more than the subordinate, nor the king more than the warrior, nor the philosopher more than the barbarian, nor the wise more than the ignorant? God, who honored everyone equally to call Himself Father, through this gave everyone the same nobility. So, having mentioned this nobility, this highest gift, the unity of honor and love between brothers, having taken the listeners away from earth and placed them in heaven, let us see what Jesus finally commands to pray for. Of course, calling God Father contains a sufficient teaching about all virtue: whoever calls God Father, and the common Father, must necessarily live in such a way as not to be unworthy of this nobility and show zeal equal to a gift. However, the Savior was not satisfied with this name, but added other sayings. "Hallowed be thy name", He says. To ask for nothing before the glory of the Heavenly Father, but to esteem everything below His praise - this is a prayer worthy of one who calls God Father! “Let him be holy” means “let him be glorified.” God has his own glory, full of all greatness and never changing. But the Savior commands the one who prays to ask that God may be glorified by our life. He said this before: “Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven”(). And the seraphim, glorifying God, cry out like this: "holy, holy, holy"()! So, “let him be holy” means “let him be glorified.” Vouchsafe us, as the Savior teaches us to pray, to live so purely, so that through us everyone will glorify You. To display a blameless life before everyone, so that each of those who see it exalts praise to the Lord - this is a sign of perfect wisdom. "Thy kingdom come"(). And these words are appropriate for a good son, who is not attached to what is visible, and does not consider present blessings to be something great, but strives for the Father and desires future blessings. This comes from a good conscience and a soul free from everything earthly.

5. This is what Paul desired every day, which is why he said: “having the firstfruits of the Spirit, we groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption as sons, the redemption of our body”(). He who has such love can neither become proud among the blessings of this life, nor despair among the sorrows; but, as one who lives in heaven, he is free from both extremes. . Do you see the beautiful connection? He first commanded to desire the future and strive for one’s fatherland; but until this happens, those living here should try to lead the kind of life that is characteristic of the celestials. One must desire, He says, heaven and heavenly things. However, even before reaching heaven, He commanded us to make the earth heaven and, living on it, to behave in everything as if we were in heaven, and to pray to the Lord about this. Indeed, the fact that we live on earth does not hinder us in the least from achieving the perfection of the heavenly forces. But it is possible, even if we live here, to do everything as if we were living in heaven. So, the meaning of the Savior’s words is this: how in heaven everything happens without hindrance and it does not happen that the angels obey in one thing and disobey in another, but in everything they obey and submit (because it is said: "mighty in strength, doing His word"()), - so grant us, people, not to do Your will halfway, but to do everything as You please. You see? Christ taught us to humble ourselves when He showed that virtue depends not only on our zeal, but also on heavenly grace, and at the same time He commanded each of us, during prayer, to take care of the universe - He did not say: Thy will be done in me, or in us, but on the whole “earth” - that is, so that all error is destroyed and truth is implanted, so that all malice is expelled and virtue returns, and so that, thus, there is no difference between heaven and earth. If this is so, He says, then what is above will not differ in any way from what is above, although they are different in properties; then the earth will show us other angels. “Give us this day our daily bread”(). What is “daily bread”? Everyday. Since Christ said: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, and He talked with people clothed with flesh, who are subject to the necessary laws of nature, and cannot have angelic dispassion, then, although He commands us to fulfill the commandments in the same way as the angels fulfill them, he nevertheless condescends to the weakness of nature, and seems to say so : I demand from you the angelic severity of life, however, without demanding dispassion, since your nature, which has a necessary need for food, does not allow it. Look, however, how there is a lot of spirituality in the physical! The Savior commanded us to pray not for wealth, not for pleasures, not for valuable clothes, not for anything else like that, but only for bread, and, moreover, for everyday bread, so that we would not worry about tomorrow, which is why he added: “daily bread ", i.e. everyday. He was not even satisfied with this word, but then added another: "give us this day" so that we do not overwhelm ourselves with worries about the coming day. In fact, if you don’t know whether you will see tomorrow, then why bother yourself with worrying about it? This is what the Savior commanded and then later in His sermon: “do not worry,” he says, "about tomorrow"(). He wants us to always be girded and inspired by faith, and to yield no more to nature than necessary needs require of us. Further, since it happens to sin even after the font of rebirth, the Savior, wanting in this case to show His great love for mankind, commands us to approach the man-loving God with a prayer for the forgiveness of our sins, and say so: “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”(). Do you see the abyss of God's mercy? After taking away so many evils, and after the indescribably great gift of justification, He again deigns to forgive those who sin. And that this prayer belongs to the faithful is shown both by the statutes of the Church and by the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer itself. One who is not enlightened by faith cannot call God Father. If the Lord’s Prayer belongs to the faithful, and if it commands them to pray for the remission of sins, then it is clear that even after baptism the beneficial use of repentance is not destroyed. If Christ had not wanted to show this, he would not have commanded to pray in this way. When He mentions sins, and commands us to ask for their forgiveness, and teaches how we can receive this forgiveness, and thereby makes it easy for us to receive it, then, without a doubt, He gave this law of prayer because He himself knew perfectly well, and he wanted to inspire us, that even after baptism one can wash away one’s sins. By reminding us of sins, He inspires us with humility; the command to let others go destroys rancor in us; and with the promise of forgiveness for us for this, he affirms good hopes in us and teaches us to reflect on the ineffable love of God for mankind.

6. What is especially worthy of note is that in each of the above petitions He mentioned all the virtues, and with this last petition He also includes rancor. And the fact that the name of God is sanctified through us is an undoubted proof of a perfect life; and the fact that His will is done shows the same thing; and the fact that we call God the Father is a sign of an immaculate life. All this already implies that we should leave anger at those who insult us; however, the Savior was not satisfied with this, but, wanting to show how much concern He has for eradicating rancor among us, he especially speaks about this, and after prayer he recalls not another commandment, but the commandment of forgiveness, saying: “If you forgive people their sins, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.”(). Thus, this remission initially depends on us, and the judgment pronounced on us lies in our power. So that none of the unreasonable, being convicted of a great or small crime, has the right to complain about the court, the Savior makes you, the most guilty one, a judge over Himself, and as if he says: what kind of judgment you pronounce on yourself, the same judgment will be I will speak about you; if you forgive your brother, then you will receive the same benefit from Me, although this latter is actually much more important than the first. You forgive another because you yourself need forgiveness, and God forgives without needing anything; you forgive your fellow slave, and God forgives the slave; you are guilty of countless sins, but God is sinless. On the other hand, the Lord shows His love for mankind by the fact that even though He could forgive you all your sins without your doing, He wants to benefit you in this too, in everything He provides you with occasions and incentives to meekness and love of mankind; drives out bestiality from you, quenches your anger and in every possible way wants to unite you with your members. What will you say about that? Is it that you have unjustly suffered some evil from your neighbor? If so, then, of course, your neighbor has sinned against you; and if you have suffered in truth, then this does not constitute sin in him. But you also approach God with the intention of receiving forgiveness for similar, and even much greater, sins. Moreover, even before forgiveness, how much did you receive, when you have already been taught to preserve the human soul within yourself and have been taught meekness? Moreover, a great reward will await you in the next century, because then you will not be required to account for any of your sins. So, what kind of punishment will we deserve if, even after receiving such rights, we ignore our salvation? Will the Lord listen to our requests when we ourselves do not spare ourselves where everything is in our power? “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen"(). Here the Savior clearly shows our insignificance and overthrows pride, teaching us not to abandon exploits and not to arbitrarily rush towards them; Thus, for us, victory will be more brilliant, and for the devil, defeat will be more painful. As soon as we are involved in a struggle, we must stand courageously; and if there is no call to it, then we must calmly wait for the time of exploits in order to show ourselves both not vain and courageous. Here Christ calls the devil evil, commanding us to wage irreconcilable warfare against him, and showing that he is not such by nature. Evil does not depend on nature, but on freedom. And the fact that the devil is primarily called the evil one is due to the extraordinary amount of evil that is found in him, and because he, without being offended by anything from us, wages an irreconcilable war against us. That is why the Savior did not say: “deliver us” from the evil ones, but: from the “evil one,” and thereby teaches us never to be angry with our neighbors for the insults that we sometimes suffer from them, but to turn all our enmity against the devil, as the culprit of all evil. By reminding us of the enemy, having made us more cautious and stopping all our carelessness, He further inspires us, introducing us to the King under whose authority we fight, and showing that He is more powerful than all. “For yours is,” says the Savior, "kingdom and power and glory". So, if His is the kingdom, then we should not fear anyone, since no one resists Him and no one shares power with Him. When the Savior said: "Thine is the kingdom", then shows that our enemy is also subordinate to God, although, apparently, he still resists, by God’s permission. And he is from among the slaves, although condemned and rejected, and therefore does not dare to attack any of the slaves without first receiving power from above. And what do I say: not one of the slaves? He did not even dare to attack pigs until the Savior himself commanded, nor herds of sheep and oxen, until he received power from above. “And strength,” says Christ. So, even though you were very weak, you must nevertheless dare, having such a King who can easily accomplish all glorious deeds through you. “And glory forever. Amen".

7. This King not only frees you from the evil that threatens you, but can also make you glorious and famous; Just as His power is great, so His glory is inexpressible - in a word, everything with Him is boundless and infinite. Do you see how the Savior strengthens and encourages the ascetic from everywhere? Then, as I said before, the Savior, wanting to show that He most of all disgusts and hates rancor, and that most of all He loves the virtue opposite to this vice, again and after prayer remembered this great virtue, and to obedience to the commandment about kindness encourages the listener both by the upcoming punishment and by a certain reward. "If you will be", He says, “If you forgive people their sins, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive people their sins, then your Father will not forgive you.”(). Here Christ again mentioned heaven and the Father in order to shame the listener with this mention, if, that is, he, being the son of such a Father, would continue to remain cruel and, being called to heaven, would have some earthly and worldly wisdom. To be a son of God, you need not only grace, but also works. And nothing makes us more like God than when we forgive evil people who offend us. The Savior showed this before when he said that the Heavenly Father “sends forth the rays of His sun on the evil and on the good”. That is why in every saying He commands to perform common prayers when He says: "Our Father! Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us our daily bread; forgive us our debts; do not lead us into temptation; deliver us" . Thus, commanding us to pronounce all petitions on behalf of many, He thereby commands us not to have even a trace of anger against our neighbor. So, what kind of punishment will be worthy of those who, despite all this, not only do not forgive themselves, but also ask God for revenge on their enemies and, thus, completely violate the law of kindness, while God does and arranges everything for this purpose? so that we don't quarrel with each other? The root of all goodness is love; That’s why He destroys everything that can harm love, and tries in every way to unite us with each other. Truly, absolutely no one - neither father, nor mother, nor friend, nor anyone else loves us as much as God who created us. And this is especially evident both from His daily blessings and from His commandments. If you point out to me illnesses, sorrows and other disasters of life, then think how much you insult Him every day - and then you will not be surprised if even greater disasters befall you; on the contrary, you will begin to marvel and be amazed when you happen to enjoy any good. Now we look only at the misfortunes that befall us, and do not think about the insults with which we daily offend God. That's why we mourn. Meanwhile, if we carefully thought about the sins we committed on just one day, we would clearly see how severe the punishments we are guilty of. And without speaking about other sins that each of us has committed before, I will only speak about the sins committed today. Although I do not know what each of us has sinned, however, there are so many sins that even without knowing everything, it is possible to point out many of them. Which of you, for example, has not been lazy in prayer? Who wasn't proud? Who hasn't been vain? Who hasn't said an offensive word to his brother? Who did not allow an evil wish? Who hasn't looked with shameless eyes? Who has not remembered the enemy with indignation of spirit, and filled his heart with arrogance? If, even while in the Church and in a short time, we became guilty of so many sins, then what will we be like when we leave here? If there are such waves in the harbor, then when we enter the abyss of evil, that is, we go out into the marketplace, begin civil affairs and household chores, then will we even be able to recognize ourselves? And yet, God, wanting us to be freed from so many and great sins, offered us a short, easy and convenient path. What kind of work, really, is it to forgive someone who has offended? It is not forgiveness, but the maintenance of enmity that is difficult. On the contrary, it is very easy for anyone who wants to free themselves from anger, and this also brings peace.

8. There is no need to cross the sea, make a long journey, climb to the tops of mountains, spend money, depress the body; All you have to do is wish - and all sins are forgiven. If you not only do not forgive the one who insulted you, but also beg God against him, then what hope of salvation will you have if, at the time when you should appease God, you insult Him, taking on the appearance of one praying, and meanwhile emitting brutal screaming and throwing the arrows of the evil one against yourself? That is why Paul, when mentioning prayer, demands nothing more than the preservation of the commandment of kindness: “lifting up,” he says, “clean hands without anger and doubt”(). If even at a time when you need mercy, you do not abandon anger, but deeply retain it in your memory, knowing that through this you are plunging a sword into yourself, then when will you be able to become humane and spew out destructive poison from yourself? anger? If you don’t yet see how hard and foolish it is to pray for revenge on your enemies, then think about the attitude of people towards the same thing, and then you will see how seriously you offend God. So, if someone came to you, a man, asking for mercy, then he saw the enemy, and, ceasing to ask you, began to beat him, would you not be even more angry? Know that the same thing happens with God. You make a request to God and, meanwhile, leaving prayer, you begin to revile your enemy and dishonor the commandments of God, calling on God, who commanded you to abandon all anger against those who offended you, and asking Him to do the opposite of His own commands. Is it not enough for you to be punished that you break the law of God? And you also beg Him to do the same? Has He forgotten what He commanded? Did He as a man say this? He is God, who knows everything and wants His laws to be preserved in all accuracy, and not only will not do what you ask Him to do, but also, for the very fact that you say so, will disgust you, hate you and subject you to the cruellest executions. How do you want to receive from Him what He Himself commands you to withhold with all your might? But there are people who have reached such madness that they not only pray against their enemies, but also curse their children, and would be ready to devour their very bodies, if it were possible, or even devour them. Don't tell me you didn't sink your teeth into the body of the offender. You did much worse when you prayed with all your zeal that wrath from above would come upon him, and that he would be given over to eternal punishment and perish with his entire household. Isn't this more painful than any remorse? Not more stinging than any arrows? This is not what Christ taught you; He did not order to bloody the mouth like that. Such tongues are fiercer than lips bloodied by the torment of human bodies. How are you going to kiss your brother? How do you touch the victim? How can you taste the blood of the Lord with so much poison in your heart? After all, when you say: tear him to pieces, destroy the house, destroy everything, and wish him countless deaths, then you are no different from a murderer, or even from a beast that devours people.

So, let's stop suffering from such madness; Let us show those who have offended us the favor that is commanded to us by the Lord, so that we may become like our heavenly Father. And we will be freed from this disease if we remember our sins, if we strictly examine all our iniquities - both internal and external, and those that we do in the marketplace, and those that we commit in church. After all, even for indecent behavior in this place alone we may find ourselves worthy of extreme punishment. In fact, while the prophets sing psalms, the apostles praise, and God himself speaks, we are distracted by external objects, making noise by talking about everyday affairs, and in order to listen to the laws of God we do not want to pay even the same attention as spectators at spectacles. when the royal decrees are read. There, when these decrees are read, everyone stands in silence and listens to the words with attention - the consuls, the prefects, the senate and the people; and if anyone, in the midst of this deepest silence, suddenly screams, then such an one, as an insult to the royal majesty, is subject to severe punishment. And here, when the heavenly scriptures are read, noise is heard from everywhere, although the One whose scriptures are much higher than the king of the earth, and the spectacle is more sacred. Not only people are here, but also angels; Moreover, the victorious rewards proclaimed in these scriptures are much superior to earthly ones, which is why not only people, but also angels and archangels, in a word, everyone, both celestial beings and those living on earth, are commanded to praise the common King. “Bless,” says the prophet, "All His works are the Lord's"(). Truly, His deeds are not unimportant, but surpass every word, and mind, and thought of man. The prophets preach about these deeds every day, and each of them proclaims His glory in different ways. One says: “he ascended on high, took captivity captive, received gifts for men” (; ). "The Lord is mighty and mighty in battle" (“They will beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks”(; ). And another calls out to Jerusalem: “Rejoice with joy, daughter of Zion, rejoice, daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and saving, meek, riding on a donkey, and on the colt of a donkey who has been yoked.”(). Another preaches His second coming, saying: “The Lord, whom you seek, will come to his temple, and whoever will endure the day of his coming.” ()? “You will leap like well-fed calves”(). And the other one says again in amazement: “This is our God, and no one else can compare with Him.”(). With these and many other broadcasts, we should tremble and be as if not on earth; and we, as in a marketplace, create noise and confusion and spend the entire time of the sacred meeting talking about things that are completely useless to us. So, when we are so careless, both in small and great, and in listening and in action, both outside the church and in the church, and moreover, we also pray for vengeance on our enemies, then how can we hope to receive salvation, we who are among the countless to our sins we add a new crime equal to all of them, that is, this lawless prayer? So, should we then be surprised when some unexpected misfortune happens to us? Shouldn't we, on the contrary, be surprised if nothing like this happens to us? The former is a natural consequence of our affairs, and the latter will be an incomprehensible and unexpected event. Truly, it is impossible to understand how the enemies and offenders of God enjoy the radiance of the sun, and the rains, and all other blessings of God. Those people enjoy who, after a spiritual meal, after great benefits, after countless instructions, surpass the beasts in their cruelty, rebel against each other, and bloody their tongues, biting their neighbors. So, taking all this into consideration, let’s throw the poison out of our hearts, destroy the enmity, let’s begin to offer prayers that are fitting for us; instead of demonic brutality, let us accept angelic meekness, and no matter how seriously we are offended, imagine our own sins, remember the reward that awaits us for keeping this commandment, and soften our anger, tame the waves, so that we can go through this life serenely, and after going there, to find the Lord for ourselves as we were to our brothers. If this is difficult and scary, then we will try to make it easy and desirable, we will open for ourselves the bright doors of boldness towards God, and what we could not accomplish by abstaining from sins, we will achieve with meekness towards those who have offended us (this is not difficult and not difficult), and, benefiting our enemies for our own, let us prepare for ourselves great mercy. Thus, in this life, everyone will love us, and first of all, God will love and crown us, and will make us worthy of all future blessings that we may all receive through the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Brief interpretation of the most sacred prayer

"Our Father".

Our Father! - because He is our Creator, who created us from nothing, and through His Son by nature became our Father by grace.

Who art thou in heaven, - because He rests in the Saints, being holy, as it is written; Holier than us are the angels who are in heaven, and heaven is purer than earth. That is why God is primarily in heaven.

Hallowed be thy name . Since You are holy, sanctify Your name in us, sanctify us too, so that we, having become Yours, can sanctify Your name, proclaim it as holy, glorify it in ourselves, and not blaspheme.

Thy kingdom come . Be our King for the sake of our good deeds, and not an enemy for the sake of our evil deeds. And may your kingdom come - the last day when you will take the kingdom over everyone, and over your enemies, and your kingdom will be forever, as it is; it awaits, however, those worthy and ready for that time.

Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth . Establish us as Angels, so that your will may be fulfilled in us and by us, as in them; Let it not be our passionate and human will, but yours, impassive and holy; and just as You have united the earthly with the heavenly, so let the heavenly be in us who are on earth.

Give us our daily bread today . Although we ask for heavenly things, we are mortal and, like people, we ask for bread to support our being, knowing that it is from You, and You alone have no need for anything, and we are bound by needs and rely on You your boldness. By asking only for bread, we do not ask for what is superfluous, but what is necessary for us for the present day, since we have been taught not to worry about tomorrow, because You care for us today, and you will care for us tomorrow and always. But also another give us this day our daily bread- living, heavenly bread, the all-holy body of the living Word, which he who does not eat will not have the least bit of life in himself. This is our daily bread: because it strengthens and sanctifies the soul and body, and don't be poisonous, don't have a belly in you, A the one who poisons him will live forever(John 6.51.53.54).

And forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors. . This petition expresses the whole meaning and essence of the divine Gospel: for the Word of God came into the world in order to forgive us our iniquities and sins, and, having become incarnate, did everything for this purpose, shed its blood, bestowed the sacraments for the remission of sins and it commanded and laid down the law. Let go and they will let you go, says It (Luke 6:37). And to Peter’s question how many times should a sinner be allowed to sin per day, he answers: up to seventy times sevenfold, instead of: without counting (Matthew 18:22). In addition, It determines by this the success of the prayer itself, testifying that if the one praying lets go, it will be forgiven to him, and if he leaves, it will be left to him, and will be left to the extent that he leaves (Luke 6:36.38), - of course , sins against one’s neighbor and the Creator: because the Master wants it. For we are all equal by nature and we are all slaves together, we all sin, by letting go a little, we receive a lot, and by giving forgiveness to people, we ourselves receive forgiveness from God.

And do not lead us into temptation : because we have a lot of tempters, full of envy and always hostile, and there are many temptations from demons, from people, from the body and from the carelessness of the soul. Everyone is subject to temptations - both those who strive and those who are careless about salvation, the righteous even more, for their own testing and exaltation, and even more so they need patience: because the spirit, although vigorous, is weak. There is also a temptation if you despise your brother, if you seduce him, insult him, or show carelessness and carelessness about matters of piety. Therefore, no matter what we have sinned against God and our brother, we ask Him to have mercy on us, being merciful and releasing us, and not leading us into temptation. Even if someone is righteous, let him not rely on himself: because one can be righteous only with humility, mercy and forgiving others of their sins.

But deliver us from evil : because he is our implacable, tireless and frantic enemy, and we are weak before him, since he has the most subtle and vigilant nature - an evil enemy, inventing and weaving thousands of intrigues for us, and always inventing dangers for us. And if You, the Creator and Lord of all things, the most evil one, the devil with his minions, as well as the Angels and us, do not snatch us from them, then who will be able to snatch us away? We do not have the strength to constantly confront this immaterial, so envious, insidious and cunning enemy. Deliver us from him Yourself.

As yours is yours, the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen. And who will tempt and offend those under your dominion, God of all and Master, ruler of the angels? Or who will resist your power? - No one: since You created and preserve everyone. Or who will resist your glory? Who dares? Or who can embrace her? Heaven and earth are filled with it, and it is higher than heaven and angels: because You are one, always existing and eternal. And your glory, kingdom and power of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit forever and ever, Amen, i.e., truly, undoubtedly and authentically. Here is a brief meaning of the Trisagion and the sacred prayer: “Our Father.” And every Orthodox Christian must certainly know it all, and lift it up to God, rising from sleep, leaving home, going to the holy temple of God, before and after eating food, in the evening and going to bed: for the prayer of the Trisagion and “Our Father” contains everything - confession of God, glorification, humility, confession of sins, and prayer for the forgiveness of them, and hope of future blessings, and asking for what is necessary, and renunciation of what is unnecessary, and trust in God, and prayer that temptation did not overtake us and we were free from the devil, so that we would do the will of God, be the sons of God and be worthy of the kingdom of God. That is why the Church prays this prayer many times day and night.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as it is in Heaven and on earth. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

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Prayer: Our Father

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The text of the Lord's Prayer in various translations

Synodal translation

Our Father Our Father, who art in heaven!

Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as it is in heaven and on earth.

Give us this day our daily bread;

and forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors;

and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

In English:

Our Father "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

It is called that because the Lord Jesus Christ gave it to His disciples. It was this prayer that He taught them, so for an Orthodox Christian, adult or small, it is the most important.

In this prayer we turn to the Almighty and Eternal God:
OUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN!
(Father - Father; Izh - Which; if you are in Heaven - you are in Heaven, or Heavenly) Our Heavenly Father!

1. Hallowed be your name,
(yes - let it; hallowed - glorified) Hallowed be Thy name,

2. THY KINGDOM COME,
May your kingdom come

3. THY WILL BE DONE, AS IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH.
(just like; in Heaven - in Heaven)
Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

4. GIVE US OUR DAILY BREAD TODAY;
(urgent - necessary for existence; dazhd - give; today - today, for the present day)
Give us this day our daily bread;

5. AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBT, JUST AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBT;
(forgive - forgive; our debts - our sins; our debtor - to those people who have sinned against us) And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us;

6. AND DO NOT LEAD US INTO TEMPTATION,
(temptation is a temptation, the danger of falling into sin) And do not let us fall into temptation,

7. BUT DELIVER US FROM Evil. (The evil one is the devil, cunning and evil. The devil is the evil spirit.) But deliver us from the evil one.

Our Father in the Gospel

The Lord's Prayer is given in the Gospels in two versions, a more extensive one in the Gospel of Matthew and a shorter one in the Gospel of Luke. The circumstances under which Jesus pronounces the text of the prayer are also different. In the Gospel of Matthew is part of the Sermon on the Mount, while in Luke Jesus gives this prayer to the disciples in response to a direct request to “teach them to pray.”

The version of the Gospel of Matthew has become widespread in the Christian world as the main Christian prayer, and the use as a prayer dates back to the earliest Christian times. The text of Matthew is reproduced in the Didache, the oldest monument of Christian writing of a catechetical nature (late 1st - beginning of the 2nd century), and the Didache gives instructions to say prayer three times a day.

Biblical scholars agree that the original version of the prayer in the Gospel of Luke was significantly shorter; subsequent copyists supplemented the text at the expense of the Gospel of Matthew, as a result of which the differences were gradually erased. Mainly, these changes in the text of Luke occurred in the period after the Edict of Milan, when church books were massively rewritten due to the destruction of a significant part of Christian literature during the persecution of Diocletian. The medieval Textus Receptus contains almost identical text in the two Gospels.

Our Father in the Gospel of Matthew

, who is in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Matt. 6:96:9-13)

Our Father in the Gospel of Luke

, who is in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; Give us our daily bread; and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every debtor to us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Luke 11:211:2-4)

Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov): The Lord's Prayer, Our Father

Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) “The petitions that make up prayer are petitions for spiritual gifts acquired for humanity through redemption. There is no word in prayer about the carnal, temporary needs of a person.”

1. "hallowed be thy name"- John Chrysostom writes that these words mean that believers should first ask for “the glory of the Heavenly Father.” The Orthodox Catechism indicates: “The Name of God is holy and, without a doubt, holy in itself,” and at the same time can “still be holy in people, that is, His eternal holiness can appear in them.” Maximus the Confessor points out: “We sanctify the name of our heavenly Father by grace when we mortify the lust attached to matter and cleanse ourselves from corrupting passions.”
2. "Thy kingdom come"- The Orthodox Catechism notes that the Kingdom of God “comes hidden and inward. The Kingdom of God will not come with observance (in a noticeable manner).” Regarding the impact of the feeling of the Kingdom of God on a person, Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes: “He who has felt the Kingdom of God within himself becomes alien to a world hostile to God. He who has felt the Kingdom of God within himself can desire, out of true love for his neighbors, that the Kingdom of God will open in all of them.”
3. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”- By this, the believer expresses that he asks God so that everything that happens in his life happens not according to his own desire, but as it pleases God.
4. “Give us this day our daily bread”- In the Orthodox Catechism, “daily bread” is “the bread necessary in order to exist or live,” but “daily bread for the soul” is “the word of God and the Body and Blood of Christ.” In Maximus the Confessor, the word “today” (this day) is interpreted as the present age, that is, the earthly life of a person.
5. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”- In this petition, debts refer to human sins. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) explains the need to forgive others’ “debts” by saying that “Forgiving our neighbors of their sins before us, their debts, is our own need: without doing this, we will never acquire a mood capable of accepting redemption.”
6. "lead us not into temptation"- In this petition, believers ask God how to prevent them from being tempted, and if, according to the will of God, they should be tested and purified through temptation, then God would not completely give them over to temptation and not allow them to fall.
7. "Deliver us from evil"- In this petition, the believer asks God to deliver him from all evil and especially “from the evil of sin and from the crafty suggestions and slander of the spirit of malice - the devil”

• Doxology- “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

The doxology at the end of the Lord's Prayer is contained so that the believer, after all the petitions contained in it, gives God due reverence.

Interpretation of prayer - Our Father

Father- Father; Izhe - Which; Who art in heaven - Who is in heaven, or heavenly; yes - let it; holy - glorified; yako - how; in heaven - in heaven; essential - necessary for existence; give - give; today - today, today; leave - forgive; debts are sins; our debtor - to those people who sinned against us; temptation is a temptation, the danger of falling into sin; Evil - everything cunning and evil, that is, the devil. An evil spirit is called the devil.

This prayer is called the Lord’s Prayer because the Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave it to His disciples when they asked Him to teach them how to pray. Therefore, this prayer is the most important prayer for everyone.

Our Father, who art in heaven! With these words we turn to God and, calling Him Heavenly Father, we urge him to listen to our requests or petitions. When we say that He is in heaven, we must mean the spiritual, invisible sky, and not that visible blue vault that is spread over us and which we call heaven.

Hallowed be your name- that is, help us to live righteously, holyly and glorify Your name with our holy deeds.

Thy Kingdom come- that is, honor us here on earth with Your Heavenly Kingdom, which is truth, love and peace; reign in us and rule us.

Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth- that is, let everything not be as we want, but as You please, and help us to obey this Your will and fulfill it on earth as unquestioningly and without grumbling as it is fulfilled, with love and joy, by the holy Angels in heaven . Because only You know what is useful and necessary for us, and You wish us good more than we ourselves.

Give us our daily bread today- that is, give us for this day, for today, our daily bread. By bread here we mean everything necessary for our life on earth: food, clothing, housing, but most importantly the Most Pure Body and the Honest Blood in the sacrament of Holy Communion, without which there is no salvation in eternal life. The Lord commanded us to ask ourselves not for wealth, not for luxury, but only for the most necessary things and to rely on God in everything, remembering that He, as a Father, always cares and takes care of us.

And forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors.- that is, forgive us our sins just as we ourselves forgive those who have offended or offended us. In this petition, our sins are called our debts, because the Lord gave us strength, abilities and everything else in order to do good deeds, and we often turn all this into sin and evil and become debtors before God. And if we ourselves do not sincerely forgive our debtors, that is, people who have sins against us, then God will not forgive us. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself told us about this.

And do not lead us into temptation- temptation is a state when something or someone draws us to sin, tempts us to do something lawless or bad. We ask - do not allow us to be tempted, which we cannot endure, help us overcome temptations when they happen.

But deliver us from evil- that is, deliver us from all evil in this world and from the culprit (chief) of evil - from the devil (evil spirit), who is always ready to destroy us. Deliver us from this cunning, crafty power and its deceptions, which is nothing before You.

Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer by St. Nicholas of Serbia (Velimirović)

When the skies roar and the oceans roar, they call to You: Our Lord of hosts, Lord of the hosts of heaven!

When the stars fall and fire bursts out of the earth, they say to You: Our Creator!

When in the spring the flowers open their buds and the larks collect dry blades of grass to build a nest for their chicks, they sing to you: Our lord!

And when I raise my eyes to Your throne, I whisper to You:

There was a time, a long and terrible time, when people called You Lord of Hosts, or Creator, or Master! Yes, then man felt that he was only a creature among creatures. But now, thanks to Your Only Begotten and Greatest Son, we have learned Your real name. Therefore, I, together with Jesus Christ, decide to call You: Father!

If I call you: Vladyko, I fall on my face in fear before You, like a slave in a crowd of slaves.

If I call you: Creator, I am moving away from You, as the night is separated from the day, or as a leaf is torn from its tree.

If I look at You and tell You: Mister, then I am like a stone among stones or a camel among camels.

But if I open my mouth and whisper: Father, love will take the place of fear, the earth will seem to become closer to heaven, and I will go for a walk with You, as with a friend, in the garden of this light and will share Your glory, Your strength, Your suffering.

You are the Father for us all, and I would humiliate both You and myself if I called You: My Father!

You care not only about me, one single blade of grass, but about everyone and everything in the world. Your goal is Your Kingdom, not one person. Selfishness in me calls to You: My Father, but love cries: !

In the name of all people, my brothers, I pray:!

In the name of all the creatures that surround me and with whom You have woven my life, I pray to You: !

I pray to You, Father of the Universe, for only one thing I pray to You: let the dawn of that day come soon when all people, living and dead, together with angels and stars, animals and stones, will call You by Your true name: !

Who is in heaven!

We raise our eyes to heaven every time we cry to You, and lower our eyes to the ground when we remember our sins. We are always below, at the very bottom because of our weakness and our sins. You are always on top, as befits Your greatness and Your holiness.

You are in heaven when we are not worthy to receive You. But You joyfully descend to us, into our earthly abodes, when we greedily strive for You and open the doors to You.

Although You condescend to us, You still remain in heaven. You live in heaven, you walk in heaven, and together with heaven you descend into our valleys.

Heaven is far, too far from the person who rejects You in spirit and heart, or who laughs when Your name is mentioned. However, heaven is close, very close to a person who has opened the gates of his soul and is waiting for You, our dearest Guest, to come.

If we compare the most righteous person with You, then You rise above him like the heavens above the valley of the earth, like eternal life above the kingdom of death.

We are made of corruptible, perishable material - how could we stand on the same peak with You, Immortal Youth and Strength!

Who is always above us, bow down to us and lift us up to Himself. What are we if not tongues created from the dust of Your glory! The dust would be forever mute and would not be able to pronounce Your name without us, Lord. How could the dust know You if not through us? How could You work miracles if not through us?

Hallowed be Thy name;

You do not become holier from our praises, however, by glorifying You, we make ourselves holier. Your name is wonderful! People bicker about names - whose name is better? It is good that Your name is sometimes remembered in these disputes, for at that very moment the speaking tongues become silent in indecision because all the great human names, woven into a beautiful wreath, cannot compare with Your name, Holy God, Most Holy!

When people want to glorify Your name, they ask nature to help them. They take stone and wood and build temples. People decorate altars with pearls and flowers and light fire with plants, their sisters; and they take incense from the cedars, their brothers; and give strength to their voices by the ringing of bells; and call the animals to glorify Your name. Nature is pure as Your stars and innocent as Your angels, Lord! Have mercy on us for the sake of pure and innocent nature, which sings Your holy name with us, Holy God, Most Holy!

How can we glorify Your name?

Perhaps innocent joy? - then have mercy on us for the sake of our innocent children.

Maybe suffering? - then look at our graves.

Or self-sacrifice? - then remember the torment of the Mother, Lord!

Your name is stronger than steel and brighter than light. Good is the man who places his hope in You and becomes wiser through Your name.

Fools say: “We are armed with steel, so who can fight us back?” And You destroy kingdoms with tiny insects!

Your name is terrible, Lord! It illuminates and burns like a huge cloud of fire. There is nothing holy or terrible in the world that is not associated with Your name. Oh, Holy God, give me as friends those who have Your name engraved in their hearts, and as enemies those who do not even want to know about You. For such friends will remain my friends until death, and such enemies will fall to their knees before me and submit as soon as their swords are broken.

Holy and terrible is Your name, Holy God, Most Holy! May we remember Your name in every moment of our life, both in moments of joy and in moments of weakness, and let us remember it in our hour of death, our Heavenly Father, Holy God!

Thy kingdom come;

May Your Kingdom come, O Great King!

We are sick of kings who only imagined themselves to be greater than other people, and who now lie in their graves next to beggars and slaves.

We are sick of the kings who yesterday declared their power over countries and peoples, and today are crying from toothache!

They are disgusting, like clouds that bring ashes instead of rain.

“Look, here is a wise man. Give him the crown! - the crowd shouts. The crown doesn't care whose head it's on. But You, Lord, know the value of the wisdom of the wise and the power of mortals. Do I need to repeat to You what You know? Need I say that the wisest among us ruled over us madly?

“Look, here is a strong man. Give him the crown! - the crowd shouts again; This is a different time, another generation. The crown silently moves from head to head, but You, Omnipotent, you know the price of the spiritual strength of the exalted and the power of the strong. You know about the weakness of the strong and those in power.

We finally understood, after suffering, that there is no other king but You. Our soul passionately desires Your Kingdom and Your Power. Wandering everywhere, haven’t we, living descendants, received enough insults and wounds on the graves of small kings and the ruins of kingdoms? Now we pray to You for help.

Let it appear on the horizon Your Kingdom! Your Kingdom of Wisdom, Fatherland and Strength! Let this land, which has been a battlefield for thousands of years, become a home where You are the master and we are the guests. Come, King, an empty throne awaits You! With You will come harmony, and with harmony comes beauty. All other kingdoms are disgusting to us, so we are waiting now You, Great King, You and Your Kingdom!

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;

Heaven and earth are Your fields, Father. In one field You sow stars and angels, in another you sow thorns and people. The stars move according to Your will. The angels play the stars like a harp, according to Your will. However, a man meets a man and asks: “What is God's will?»

How long does man not want to know Your will? How long will he humble himself before the thorns under his feet? You created man to be equal to the angels and stars, but look - even thorns surpass him.

But you see, Father, a person, if he wants, can glorify Your name better than thorns, just like angels and stars. Oh, You, Spirit-Giver and Voled-Giver, give man Your Will.

Your will wise, clear and holy. Your will moves the heavens, so why not the same will move the earth, which in comparison with the heavens is like a drop before the ocean?

You never get tired, working with wisdom, Our Father. There is no place for any stupidity in Your plan. Now You are as fresh in wisdom and goodness now as on the first day of creation, and tomorrow you will be the same as today.

Your will holy because she is wise and fresh. Holiness is inseparable from You, like air from us.

Anything unholy may ascend to heaven, but nothing unholy will ever come down from heaven, from Your throne, Father.

We pray to You, our Holy Father: make the day come quickly when the will of all people will be wise, fresh and holy, like Your will, and when all creatures on earth will move in harmony with the stars in the sky; and when our planet will sing in choir with all Your amazing stars:

God, teach us!

God, lead us!

Father, save us!

Give us this day our daily bread;

He who gives the body also gives the soul; and He who gives air also gives bread. Your children, merciful Gifter, expect from You everything they need.

Who will brighten their faces in the morning if not You with Your light?

Who will watch over their breath at night while they sleep, if not You, the most tireless of all watchmen?

Where would we sow our daily bread if not in Your field? How could we refresh ourselves if not Your morning dew? How would we live without Your light and Your air? How could we eat if not with the lips that You have given us?

How could we rejoice and thank You for being full, if not for the spirit that You breathed into lifeless dust and created a miracle out of it, You, the most amazing Creator?

I do not ask you for my bread, but about our bread. What good would it do if I had bread, and my brothers starved next to me? It would be better and more just if You took away from me the bitter bread of the selfish, for satisfied hunger is sweeter if shared with a brother. Your will cannot be such that one person thanks You, and hundreds curse You.

Our Father, give us our bread, so that we glorify You in a harmonious choir and so that we joyfully remember our Heavenly Father. Today we pray for today.

This day is great, many new beings were born today. Thousands of new creations, which did not exist yesterday and which will no longer exist tomorrow, are born today under the same sunlight, fly with us on one of Your stars and together with us say to You: our bread.

O great Master! We are Your guests from morning to evening, we are invited to Your meal and wait for Your bread. No one except You has the right to say: my bread. He is yours.

No one but You has the right to tomorrow and to tomorrow’s bread, only You and those of today’s guests whom You invite.

If it is Your will that the end of today be the dividing line between my life and death, I will bow to Your holy will.

If it be Your will, tomorrow I will again be a companion of the great sun and a guest at Your table, and I will repeat my gratitude to You, as I constantly repeat day after day.

And I will bow before Your will again and again, as the angels in heaven do, the Giver of all gifts, physical and spiritual!

and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;

It is easier for a person to sin and break Your laws, Father, than to understand them. However, it is not easy for You to forgive us our sins if we do not forgive those who sin against us. For You founded the world on measure and order. How can there be balance in the world if You have one measure for us, and we have another for our neighbors? Or if You give us bread, and we give our neighbors a stone? Or if You forgive us our sins, and we execute our neighbors for their sins? How then would measure and order be maintained in the world, O Lawgiver?

And yet You forgive us more than we can forgive our brothers. We defile the earth every day and every night with our crimes, and You greet us every morning with the clear eye of Your sun and every night You send Your merciful forgiveness through the stars, which stand as holy guards at the gates of Your Kingdom, Our Father!

You shame us every day, Most Merciful, for when we expect punishment, You send us mercy. When we wait for Your thunder, You send us a peaceful evening, and when we expect darkness, You give us sunlight.

You are eternally exalted above our sins and always great in Your silent patience.

It’s hard for a fool who thinks that he will alarm You with crazy speeches! He is like a child who angrily throws a pebble into the waves to drive the sea away from the shore. But the sea will only wrinkle the surface of the waters and continue to irritate weakness with its enormous power.

Look, our sins are common sins, we are all together responsible for the sins of everyone. Therefore, there are no pure righteous people on earth, for all righteous people must take upon themselves some of the sins of sinners. It is hard to be an immaculately righteous person, for there is not a single righteous person who does not bear the burden of at least one sinner on his shoulders. However, Father, the more a righteous person bears the sins of sinners, the more righteous he is.

Our heavenly Father, You, Who send bread from morning to evening to your children and accept their sins as payment, lighten the burden of the righteous and dispel the darkness of sinners!

The earth is full of sins, but also full of prayers; it is full of the prayers of the righteous and the despair of sinners. But isn't despair the beginning of prayer?

And in the end you will be the winner. Your Kingdom will stand on the prayers of the righteous. Your will will become a law for people, just as Your will is a law for angels.

Otherwise, why would You, our Father, hesitate to forgive the sins of mortals, because by doing so You give us an example of forgiveness and mercy?

and do not lead us into temptation,

Oh, how little it takes for a person to turn away from You and turn to idols!

He is surrounded by temptations like storms, and he is weak as foam on the crest of a stormy mountain stream.

If he is rich, he immediately begins to think that he is equal to You, or places You after himself, or even decorates his house with Your faces as luxury items.

When evil knocks at his gates, he falls into the temptation to bargain with You or throw You away completely.

If You call him to sacrifice himself, he becomes indignant. If You send him to death, he trembles.

If You offer him all earthly pleasures, in temptation he poisons and kills his own soul.

If You reveal to his eyes the laws of Your care, he grumbles: “The world is wonderful in itself, and without a Creator.”

We are embarrassed by Your holiness, O our Holy God. When You call us to the light, we, like moths at night, rush into the darkness, but, rushing into the darkness, we seek the light.

A network of many roads stretches out before us, but we are afraid to reach the end of any of them, because temptation awaits and beckons us at any edge.

And the path that leads to You is blocked by many temptations and many, many failures. Before temptation comes, it seems to us that You accompany us like a bright cloud. However, when temptation begins, You disappear. We turn around in concern and silently ask ourselves: what is our mistake, where are you, are you there or are you not?

In all our temptations we ask ourselves: “Are You really our Father?” All our temptations throw into our minds the same questions that the whole world around us asks us day after day and night after night:

“What do you think about the Lord?”

“Where is He and who is He?”

“Are you with Him or without Him?”

Give me strength Father and Creator mine, so that at any moment of my life I can correctly respond to every possible temptation.

The Lord is the Lord. He is where I am and where I am not.

I give Him my passionate heart and stretch out my hands to His holy robes, I reach out to Him like a child to its beloved Father.

How could I live without Him? This means that I could live without myself.

How can I be against Him? This means that I will be against myself.

A righteous son follows his father with honor, peace and joy.

Blow Your inspiration into our souls, Our Father, so that we may become Your righteous sons.

but deliver us from evil.

Who will free us from evil if not You, our Father?

Who will reach out to drowning children if not their father?

Who cares more about the cleanliness and beauty of the house, if not its owner?

You created us from nothing and made something out of us, but we are drawn to evil and again turn into nothing.

We warm to our hearts the snake that we fear more than anything in the world.

With all our strength we rebel against darkness, but still darkness lives in our souls, sowing the germs of death.

We are all unanimously against evil, but evil is slowly creeping into our home and, while we scream and protest against evil, it takes one position after another, getting closer and closer to our hearts.

Oh, Almighty Father, stand between us and evil, and we will lift up our hearts, and evil will dry up like a puddle on the road under the hot sun.

You are high above us and do not know how evil grows, but we are suffocating under it. Look, evil is growing in us day after day, spreading its abundant fruits everywhere.

The sun greets us every day with “Good morning!” and asks what can we show our great King? And we demonstrate only the old, broken fruits of evil. Oh, God, truly dust, motionless and inanimate, is purer than a person who is in the service of evil!

Look, we built our homes in the valleys and hid in caves. It is not at all difficult for You to command Your rivers to flood all our valleys and caves and wipe out humanity from the face of the earth, washing it away from our dirty deeds.

But You are above our anger and our advice. If you had listened to human advice, You would have already destroyed the world to the ground and You Yourself would have perished under the ruins.

O Wise One among fathers! You smile forever in Your divine beauty and immortality. Look, the stars grow from Your smile! With a smile You transform our evil into good, and graft the Tree of Good onto the tree of evil, and with endless patience you ennoble our uncultivated Garden of Eden. You patiently heal and patiently create. You are patiently building Your Kingdom of goodness, Our King and Our Father. We pray to You: free us from evil and fill us with good, for You abolish evil and fill us with good.

For Thine is the Kingdom,

The stars and the sun are citizens of Your Kingdom, Our Father. Enroll us in Your shining army.

Our planet is small and dark, but it is Your work, Your creation and Your inspiration. What else can come out of Your hands but something great? But still, with our insignificance and darkness, we make our habitat small and gloomy. Yes, the earth is small and gloomy every time we call it our kingdom and when we say in madness that we are its kings.

Look how many of us there are who were kings on earth and who now, standing on the ruins of their thrones, are surprised and ask: “Where are all our kingdoms?” There are many kingdoms that do not know what happened to their kings. Blessed and happy is the man who looks into the sky-high heights and whispers the words that I hear: Yours is the Kingdom!

What we call our earthly kingdom is full of worms and fleeting, like bubbles in deep water, like clouds of dust on the wings of the wind! Only You have the true Kingdom, and only Your Kingdom has a King. Take us off the wings of the wind and take us to You, merciful King! Save us from the wind! And make us citizens of Your eternal Kingdom near Your stars and the sun, among Your angels and archangels, let us be close to You!

and strength,

Yours is the power, for Yours is the kingdom. False kings are weak. Their royal power lies only in their royal titles, which are truly Your titles. They are wandering dust, and dust flies wherever the wind blows. We are just wanderers, shadows and flying dust. But even when we wander and wander, we are moved by Your power. By Your power we were created and by Your power we will live. If a person does good, he does it with Your power through You, but if a person does evil, he does it with Your power, but through himself. Everything that is done is done by Your power, used for good or abused. If a man, Father, uses Your power according to Your will, then Your power will be Yours, but if a man uses Your power according to His own will, then Your power is called his power and will be evil.

I think, Lord, that when You yourself have Your strength at your disposal, then it is good, but when the beggars who borrowed strength from You proudly dispose of it as their own, it becomes evil. Therefore, there is one Owner, but there are many evil stewards and users of Your power, which You graciously distribute at Your rich table to these unfortunate mortals on earth.

Look at us, Almighty Father, look at us and do not rush to bestow Your power on the dust of the earth until the palaces there are ready for it: good will and humility. Good will - to use the received divine gift for good deeds, and humility - to forever remember that all the power in the universe belongs to You, great Power-Giver.

Your power is holy and wise. But in our hands Your power is in danger of being desecrated and can become sinful and insane.

Our Father, who art in heaven, help us to know and do only one thing: to know that all power is Yours, and to use Your power according to Your will. Look, we are unhappy, because we have divided what is indivisible with You. We separated power from holiness, and separated power from love, and separated power from faith, and finally (and this is the first reason for our fall) we separated power from humility. Father, we pray to You, unite all that your children have divided through foolishness.

We pray You, exalt and protect the honor of Your power, which has been abandoned and dishonored. Forgive us, for although we are like this, we are Your children.

and glory forever.

Your glory is eternal, like You, our King, our Father. It exists in You and does not depend on us. This glory is not from words, like the glory of mortals, but from a true, imperishable essence, such as You. Yes, she is inseparable from You, just as light is inseparable from the hot sun. Who has seen the center and halo of Your glory? Who has become famous without touching Your glory?

Your brilliant glory surrounds us on all sides and looks at us silently, smiling slightly and slightly surprised at our human worries and grumblings. When we become silent, someone secretly whispers to us: you are the children of the glorious Father.

Oh, how sweet is this secret whisper!

What do we desire more than to be children of Your glory? Isn't that enough? Without a doubt, this is enough for a righteous life. However, people want to be the fathers of fame. And this is the beginning and apogee of their misfortunes. They are not content to be children and participants in Your glory, but they want to be fathers and bearers of Your glory. And yet You alone are the only bearer of Your glory. There are many who abuse Your glory, and many who have fallen into self-deception. There is nothing more dangerous in the hands of mortals than fame.

You show Your glory, and people argue about theirs. Your glory is a fact, but human glory is only a word.

Your glory eternally smiles and comforts, but human glory, separated from You, frightens and kills.

Your glory nourishes the unfortunate and guides the meek, but human glory is separated from You. She is Satan's most terrible weapon.

How ridiculous people are when they try to create their own glory, outside of You and apart from You. They are like some fool who hated the sun and tried to find a place where there was no sunlight. He built himself a shack without windows and, entering it, stood in the darkness and rejoiced that he had escaped from the source of light. Such is the fool and such is the inhabitant of darkness, he who tries to create his glory outside of You and apart from You, Immortal Source of Glory!

There is no human glory, just as there is no human power. Thine is both the power and the glory. If we do not receive them from You, we will not have them, and we will wither and be carried away by the will of the wind, like dry leaves falling from a tree.

We are pleased to be called Your children. There is no greater honor on earth or in heaven than this honor.

Take from us our kingdoms, our strength and our glory. Everything we once called ours lies in ruins. Take from us what belonged to You from the very beginning. Our whole history has been a foolish attempt to create our kingdom, our power and our glory. Quickly end our old story where we struggled to become masters in Your house, and begin a new story where we strive to become servants in the house that belongs to You. Truly, it is better and more glorious to be a servant in Your Kingdom than to be the most important king in our kingdom.

Therefore, make us, Father, servants of Your Kingdom, Your power and Your glory in all generations and forever and ever. Amen!

Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer by the Venerable Maximus the Confessor

So, after it has been shown that this Prayer is a request for benefits from the incarnate Word and that it represents Him Himself as the Teacher of Prayer, let us dare to examine it carefully, clarifying through speculation, as far as possible, the meaning of each phrase. For the Word of God itself is in the habit of bestowing the proper ability to understand the thought of the speaker:

Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come.

In these words, the Lord teaches those praying that prayer should begin immediately with theology, and also initiates them into the mystery of the way of existence of the Creative Cause of all things, being Himself in essence this Cause. For the words of the Prayer reveal to us the Father, the Name of the Father and His Kingdom, so that from the very beginning of the Prayer we learn to honor the one Trinity, call upon Her and worship Her. For the Name of God the Father, which exists in an essential manner, is His Only Begotten Son. And the Kingdom of God the Father, which also abides in an essential way, is the Holy Spirit. What Matthew calls here the Kingdom, another Evangelist called the Spirit, saying: Let Your Holy Spirit come and cleanse us. After all, the Father does not possess this Name as newly acquired, and we understand the Kingdom not as a dignity contemplated in Him, since He did not begin to be in order to become first a Father and then a King, but, the Ever-Bearing One, He is always both Father and King, absolutely having no beginning either for His being, or for becoming a Father or King. If He is the Ever-Bearing One and is always both Father and King, then this means that both the Son and the Holy Spirit always essentially coexist with the Father. They naturally exist from Him and in Him in such a way that they transcend all reason and all reason. They did not begin to exist after Him and not according to the law of causality, since Their connection has the ability to jointly manifest that of which it is the connection and is called, not allowing Them to be considered as following One after the Other.

Therefore, having begun this Prayer, we learn to honor the Consubstantial and Pre-Existent Trinity as the creative Cause of our existence. At the same time, we learn to proclaim the grace of adoption in us, being worthy to call our Creator by nature Father by grace. And this is so that, experiencing reverent fear of the name of our Parent by grace, we would try to imprint in our lives the features of the One who gave birth to us, sanctifying His name on earth, becoming like Him, revealing ourselves through our deeds as His children and glorifying the Self-Accomplisher with our thoughts and deeds. our adoption as sons is by the nature of the Son of the Father.

And we sanctify the name of our heavenly Father by grace when we mortify the lust attached to matter and cleanse ourselves from corrupting passions. For sanctification is complete immobility and mortification of sensual lust. Being in this state, we calm down the obscene howl of rage, no longer having lust that excites it, and also incites it to fight for its pleasures. And therefore, lust, thanks to holiness consistent with reason, is mortified in us. After all, rage, by its nature carrying within itself retribution for lust, usually ceases to rage when it sees lust mortified.

So, through the rejection of lust and rage, the power of the Kingdom of God the Father naturally comes to us, according to the Lord’s Prayer, when, after rejecting the passions, we are worthy to say: Thy kingdom come, that is, the Holy Spirit, and when we have already been made, through this Spirit and thanks to the way of existence and the logos of meekness, the temples of God. For the Lord says: To whom will I look only to him who is meek and silent, and who trembles at My words (Isa. 66:2). From this it is clear that the Kingdom of God the Father belongs to the humble and meek. For it is said: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). God did not promise this earth as an inheritance to those who love Him, which by nature occupies a middle position in the universe. Revealing the truth to us, He says: For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but remain as the angels of God in heaven (Matthew 22:30). And again: Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). And again in another place He said with thanksgiving to the worker: Enter into the joy of your master (Matthew 25:21). And after Him the divine Apostle says: For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible (1 Cor. 15:52). Also: Then we, having remained alive, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:17).

So, if all this was promised in a similar way to those who love the Lord, then who, chaining his mind to only one saying of the Holy Scriptures, will begin to talk about the identity of Heaven and the Kingdom prepared from the creation of the world with the earth on which we now live? mysteriously hidden joy, as well as the permanent and non-spatial residence and habitation of people worthy with the Lord? Who will say this if he is prompted by the Word of God and passionately longs to be His servant? Therefore, I think that “earth” here refers to the unshakable and unchanging skill, inner strength and steadfastness in goodness of the meek, for they always abide with the Lord, have inexhaustible joy, adhere to the Kingdom prepared from the beginning, and are worthy of standing and rank in heaven. Such rational virtue is like a kind of earth occupying a middle position in the universe. Accordingly, the meek, being between praise and blame, remains dispassionate, neither puffed up by praises nor embarrassed by reproaches. For the mind, having abandoned passion, no longer feels uneasy from attacks from that from which it is by nature free, since it has calmed within itself the storm caused by these passions, and has transferred all the strength of its soul into the haven of divine and motionless freedom. Wanting to teach this freedom to His disciples, the Lord speaks. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:29). The Lord here calls “peace” the power of the Divine Kingdom, which creates in the souls of worthy people autocratic rule, alien to any slavery.

If the indestructible power of the immaculate Kingdom is given to the humble and meek, then who will be so lazy and completely indifferent to the Divine blessings that he will not strive with the utmost effort towards humility and meekness in order to become, as far as humanly possible, an imprint of the Divine Kingdom, truly carrying within oneself the great, by nature and essence, King Christ and becoming, by grace, His unchanging image in the Spirit. In this image, says the divine Apostle, there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28), that is, there is neither rage nor lust. After all, the first tyrannically steals the understanding and takes thought beyond the boundaries of the law of nature, and the second makes more desirable than the One and Only, the desired and impassive Cause of all things and the Nature of this being, that which is lower than It, and therefore the flesh prefers to the spirit, makes pleasure visible more pleasant than the glory and radiance of mental goods and the pleasantness of sensual pleasures keeps the mind from the divine and akin to it perception of intelligible things. But in this image there is only one single mind, due to the excess of virtue, revealed even from the most completely dispassionate, but still natural, love and inclination towards the body, since the Spirit finally conquers nature and forces the mind to no longer engage in moral philosophy, for it should already to unite with the transcendent Word through simple and indivisible contemplation. However, it is in the nature of the mind to facilitate the easy dissection of the temporary flow of existence and the transition through it. And after passing through temporary existence, it is indecent for the mind to burden itself, like mercy, with moral concerns, since it is no longer under the power of the sensory.

The great Elijah clearly shows this, typifying such a sacrament by what he did. Namely: during his ascension to heaven, a mantle signifying the mortification of the flesh and containing the splendor of moral decency, he gave Elisha to assist the Spirit in the fight against every hostile force and to defeat the fickle and fluid nature, the image of which was Jordan, so that the disciple would not kept from crossing into the Holy Land, immersed in the dirty and slippery addiction to material things. And Elijah himself, marching towards God completely free, not held back by any connection with existence and possessing a simple aspiration and an uncomplicated will, ascends to the Simple God by nature through interconnected, universal and connected by knowledge one with another virtues, as if making his way on fiery horses. For he knew that a disciple of Christ should not have unequal spiritual dispositions, since their difference exposes alienation from Christ. If the excitement of lust dissolves the spirit located near the heart, then rage generates boiling of the blood. Therefore, Elijah, as one who anticipates life in Christ, moved and existing by Him (Acts 17:28), eliminated from himself the unnatural source of passions, not carrying in himself, as I said, opposite predispositions of these passions, like the male and female sexes . And this is so that the mind, which is endowed by nature itself with honoring the divine image, is not enslaved by them, changing from their unstable changes, convincing the soul to recreate itself, of its own free will, to become like God and become the bright dwelling of the great Kingdom, that is, the Holy Spirit , - a Kingdom that essentially exists together with God and the Father of all creatures. Such a person receives, if I may say so, the full power of knowledge of the Divine nature, as far as this is possible for him. By virtue of this knowledge of God, the soul tends to renounce the worst and become better, if only it, like God, preserves within itself, by the grace of vocation, the unspoiled essence of the given blessings. In such a soul, Christ always deigns to be mysteriously born, incarnated by those who are being saved, and He makes the giving birth soul a virgin mother. Therefore, due to this property, it does not have in itself the signs of a nature that is under the laws of decay and birth, such as, for example, the signs of male and female.

And let no one be surprised to hear that corruption comes before birth. After all, having impartially and with sound understanding examined the nature of what is born and disappears, he will clearly see that birth begins with corruption and ends with corruption. Christ, that is, Christ’s and life and mind according to Christ, do not have the passionate properties of this birth. For truly says the Apostle, pointing, no doubt, to the signs and properties of nature, which is under the laws of corruption and generation: In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28), but there is only a godlike mind, created by divine knowledge, and the only movement of the will that chooses virtue alone.

Also in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor pagan - these words denote a different, or, more precisely, opposite way of thinking about God. For one way of thinking about God, namely the Hellenic one, foolishly introduces the idea of ​​multi-principle, divides the one Principle into opposing actions and forces, invents polytheistic veneration, which, due to the multitude of gods worshiped, brings discord and disgraces itself in different ways of worship. And the other, that is, the Jewish way of thinking about God, although it teaches about one Beginning, presents Him as narrow, imperfect and almost non-existent, devoid of Word and Life - and through this opposite extreme it falls into evil equal to the previous teaching, that is, into atheism . For he limits the single Principle to the Person alone, existing either completely without the Word and the Spirit, or possessing the Word and the Spirit as properties. This teaching does not notice that God, deprived of the Word and the Spirit, is no longer God. For he who is endowed with the Word and the Spirit as random properties by participation, like rational created beings who are under the laws of birth, will not be God. Both of these teachings about God are absent in Christ, for in Him there exists the only teaching of true piety and the unshakable law of sacramental theology, which rejects the expansion of the Divine in the first teaching and does not accept His contraction in the second. After all, the Divinity should not be presented, due to Its natural plurality, as being in internal discord with Itself - which is a Hellenic delusion; It should not be presented, due to its unity, as subject to suffering, being deprived of the Word and the Spirit, or endowed with the Word and the Spirit as random properties - this is a Jewish delusion. Therefore, the law of sacramental theology teaches us, through the calling of grace adopted by faith to the knowledge of the truth, to comprehend the one nature and power of the Divine, namely, the One God, contemplated in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, to know the only and uncaused Mind, which abides in an essential way and being the Parent of the only Word, existing without beginning in essence, and also to cognize the Source of the one ever-present Life, essentially abiding as the Holy Spirit. One should recognize the Trinity in the Unity and the Unity in the Trinity; not one in the other, because the Trinity is not for the Unit what a random property is for the essence, and the Unit is not in the Trinity, for it is without quality; and not as one and the other, because the Unity is not distinguished from the Trinity by the otherness of its nature, being a simple and united Nature; and not as one along with the other, because it is not by weakening of power that the Trinity differs from the Unity, or the Unity from the Trinity; and not as something general and generic, contemplated by thought alone, does the Unit differ from the Trinity, for the Divine essence is truly Self-existent, and the Divine power is truly self-powerful; and not as one through the other, for that which is completely identical and irrespective is not mediated by a connection, like the connection of an effect with a cause; and not as one from the other, for the Trinity, being unbegotten and self-manifested, does not come from the Unit by creation.

But we think and talk about God, Who truly is both Unity and Trinity; He is a Unit due to the logos of His essence and a Trinity due to the image of His existence. We confess the same entire Unit, undivided by Hypostases; and the entire same Trinity, not fused by the Unity, so that polytheism is not introduced by division or atheism by merging, and, avoiding these two extremes, the teaching of Christ shines with all light. By the teaching of Christ I mean the new preaching of the truth, in which there is no male or female, then there are no signs of the weakness of nature, standing under the law of corruption and birth; there is no longer Jew or pagan, that is, there are no opposing teachings about the Divine; there is no circumcision or uncircumcision, that is, there are no ministries corresponding to these teachings; for one of them - the Jewish ministry - through the symbols of the law condemns the visible creation and slanderes the Creator as the Creator of evil, and the other - the pagan ministry - idolizes the creation for the sake of satisfying passions and restores this creation against the Creator: in the same way, both ministries lead to the same evil - blasphemy; there is no barbarian, no Scythian, that is, there is no division of a single human nature, of its own will rebelling against itself, as a result of which, contrary to nature, the destructive law of mutual murder invaded humanity; there is neither slave nor free, that is, there is no division of human nature that goes against the will, which makes dishonorable those who are equally honest by nature and has as its assistant the law, reflecting the way of thinking of those in power and tyrannically trampling on the dignity of the image of God; “O everything and in everything, Christ, through that which is above nature and law, creates in the Spirit the image of the beginningless Kingdom - and this image, as was indicated, is inscribed in the soul with humility of heart and meekness, the combination of which indicates a person perfect in Christ ( Col. 1:28). After all, everyone who is humble in wisdom is, without a doubt, meek, and everyone who is meek is, without a doubt, also humble in wisdom. He is humble because he has learned that he has a borrowed existence, and he is meek because he has learned the correct use of the powers given to him by nature. By forcing these natural forces to serve the mind for the birth of virtue, he completely distracts their energy from sensory sensations. As a result of this, in the mind he always moves towards God, but in feeling he is completely motionless, not perceiving the experience of everything that causes sadness to the body, and not drawing a trace of sadness in the soul instead of the joy that reigns in it. For he does not look at the absence of pleasure as a felt pain, because he knows only one pleasure - the cohabitation of the soul with the Word; deprivation of this pleasure. For him - endless torment, spreading to eternity. Therefore, leaving the body and the physical, he rushes towards Divine coexistence; even if he had dominion over everyone living on earth, even then he considered only one thing to be a true deprivation - the unattainability of the expected deification by grace.

So, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (2 Cor. 7:1), so that, having quenched lust, which absurdly flirts with the passions, we sanctify the Divine Name, and let us bind with our minds the rage driven into frenzy by pleasures, so that, having become meek, we can accept the future Kingdom of God the Father. Let us add the following to the previous words of the Prayer:

Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth.

He who mysteriously brings service to God with his own rational strength, detached from lust and rage, fulfills the will of God on earth, like the ranks of angels in heaven. He has already become a co-servant and cohabitant of the Angels, as the great Apostle says: But our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). Such people have neither lust, which relaxes the tension of the mind with pleasure, nor rage, which rages and shamelessly barks at those close to itself. There remains only one single mind in them, which naturally leads rational beings to the first Mind. This is the only thing God rejoices in and this is the only thing He demands from us, His servants. This is revealed in His words to David: What is there in heaven? And from you what did the earth desire (Ps. 73:25). But the holy Angels in heaven bring nothing to God except reasonable service. Desiring the same from us, the Lord teaches those who pray to say: Thy will be done, as it is in heaven and on earth.

So let our minds rush to the search for God, and let the power of desire become an attraction to Him, just as let the fierce beginning enter into the struggle to preserve Him. Or, more precisely, let our whole mind extend to God, prompted, as if by a certain voice, by the tension of passion and inflamed by the utmost impulse of the power of desire. Imitating in this way the heavenly Angels, we will always be servants of God and on earth we will demonstrate an equal life with the Angels, and therefore, along with the Angels, we will have a mind completely indifferent to what is lower than God. Living in this way, through Prayer we will find, as our daily bread, life-giving and satiating our souls to preserve the strength of the blessings given to us, the Word itself, which spoke: I am the bread of life that came down from heaven, giving life to the world (John 6:33, 35 -38). This Word becomes everything, proportionate to us, saturated with virtue and wisdom, and is embodied in various ways, as soon as It Himself knows, for the sake of each of those being saved. Let us accept Him, while still living in this age, according to the meaning of the following saying of the Prayer:

Our daily bread is rain for us today.

The word “today,” I think, means the present age. Or, to interpret this passage of the Prayer more clearly, we can say: our bread, which You prepared in the beginning for the immortality of human nature, give us today, in this mortal life, so that eating the bread of life and knowledge will overcome sinful death - that bread of which the crime deprived the first man of the Divine commandment. After all, if he had been satisfied with this Divine food, he would not have been taken captive by the death of sin.

However, the one who prays to receive this daily bread does not receive it entirely as it is, but receives only as much as the recipient himself can perceive it. For the Bread of Life, as a Lover of Mankind, although He gives Himself to all who ask, does not give Himself equally to everyone: to those who have committed great deeds He gives more, but to those who have committed lesser deeds He gives less, that is, He gives to everyone as much as he can accept his spiritual dignity.

The Savior Himself led me to this understanding of the present saying of the Prayer, commanding His disciples not to worry at all about sensual food, saying to them: Do not worry about your soul, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear (Matthew 6: 25), because the people of this world seek all this (Luke 12:30), but you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). How does the Lord teach in Prayer not to seek what He Himself previously commanded? - It is clear that in Prayer He did not order to ask for what He did not command in His commandment, for in Prayer we must ask for what we should seek according to the commandment. And what the Lord does not allow us to seek is unlawful to pray for. If the Savior commanded to seek one Kingdom of God and truth, then He encouraged those seeking Divine gifts to ask for the same thing in Prayer, so that, through this Prayer, having confirmed the grace of the goods sought by nature, to unite and identify through relative unity the will of those asking with the desire of the Giver of grace.

If Prayer commands us to ask for that everyday bread that naturally supports our present life, then this is so that we do not go beyond the boundaries of Prayer, covering whole periods of years in thought, and do not forget that we are mortal and have a life here that is similar to the transitory one. shade, but so that, without being burdened with unnecessary worries, they ask in Prayer for bread for the day. And we will show that we wisely, according to Christ, turn our earthly life into a meditation on death, by our own will forestalling nature and, before death, cutting off the soul’s care for the bodily, so that it does not cleave to the corruptible and does not pervert its natural use by attraction to matter striving for God, becoming accustomed to covetousness, which deprives the wealth of Divine blessings.

So, let us avoid, as far as possible, love for matter and wash away, like dust, from our mental eyes the very connection with it; Let us be content only with what supports our life, and not with what gives it pleasure. Let us pray to God, as we have learned, so that our soul does not fall into slavery and not, for the sake of the body, fall under the yoke of visible things. Then it will be clear that we eat in order to live, and do not live in order to eat, since the first is characteristic of rational nature, and the second - of irrational nature. Let us be strict guardians of this Prayer, showing by our very deeds that we firmly adhere to one and only life - life in the Spirit, and to acquire it we use our entire present life. Let us prove in practice that for the sake of spiritual life we ​​only endure this mortal life, supporting it with one bread and keeping it, as far as possible, in a healthy state, only so that we not only live, but live for God, making the body, inspired by virtues, a messenger soul, but a soul distinguished by constancy in goodness, making it a preacher of God. And we will naturally limit this bread to the needs of one day, not daring to extend requests for it to another day out of obedience to the One who Granted this Prayer. Therefore, having actively adjusted ourselves in accordance with the meaning of the Prayer, let us proceed in purity to the rest of the sayings, saying:

And forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors.

Who, according to the understanding of the previous saying of the Prayer, in this age, which is symbolized, as we said, by the word “today,” seeks through Prayer the incorruptible Bread of Wisdom, the tasting of which was deprived us by the original transgression of the commandment; who recognizes only one pleasure - success in the Divine, the Giver of which by nature is God, and the guardian by choice is the free will of the recipient; who knows only one grief - failure in this success, the inspirer of which is the devil, and the accomplisher is anyone who, due to weakened will, gets tired of the Divine and does not keep this treasure, which is held in the soul by the loving disposition of the will; whoever does not voluntarily gravitate towards visible things and therefore does not yield to the bodily sorrows that happen to him, truly forgives those who dispassionately sin against him. After all, no one can take away the good that he preserves within himself with love and care, for it, as verified by faith, is inalienable by its nature. He appears before God as an example of virtue and, so to speak, calls on the Inimitable One to imitate himself, saying: forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors: he prays to God to be what he himself was in relation to his neighbors. For if he wishes that God would forgive him in the same way as he himself forgave the debts of those who sinned against him, that just as God dispassionately forgives those whom he forgives, so he forgives those who have sinned, remaining dispassionate to what happens to him, and therefore does not allow his mind to be imprinted with memories of previous sorrows, showing himself to be a man who is not separated from other people and does not dismember the unified human nature. For when the will is united in this way with the logos of nature, then the reconciliation of God with human nature usually occurs, since it is otherwise impossible for nature, which voluntarily rebels against itself, to accept the ineffable condescension of the Divine. And, of course, the Lord desires our reconciliation with each other not in order to learn from us to reconcile with those who have sinned and agree to redress many and terrible grievances, but He desires this in order to cleanse us of passions and show that our spiritual state is cramped. associated with grace. And it is clear that when the will has united with the logos of nature, the free will of the people who do this will no longer rebel against God. After all, there is nothing contrary to reason in the logos of nature, since it is both natural and Divine law, taking into itself the movement of the will acting in accordance with it. And if there is no counter-reason in the logos of nature, then it is quite natural that the will, moved in accordance with it, will act in everything in accordance with God. This is the active disposition of the soul, through the grace of God, Good by nature, contributing to the birth of virtue.

The one who asks for spiritual Bread in Prayer has this disposition of soul, and after him, the same disposition will be found by the one who, forced by the needs of the physical nature, asks only for everyday bread. Realizing himself to be mortal by nature, he leaves debts to debtors, and then, in view of the unknown hour of death, every day he expects the naturally inevitable and with his will warns nature, becoming a self-willed dead man for the world according to the words of the Psalmist: For your sake we are killed all day long, counted as sheep of the slaughter (Ps. 43:23). As a result of this, he is reconciled with everyone, so that, when he is presented to unfading life, he does not bring with him signs of the depravity of the present age and in order to receive from the Judge and Savior of all in equal recompense what he borrowed here on earth. For a good spiritual disposition towards those who have grieved is necessary for both for their own benefit. And this is demonstrated by the following words of the Prayer:

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

With these words, Scripture shows that whoever has not completely reconciled with those who sinned against him and has not presented to God a heart pure from sorrow and enlightened by the light of reconciliation with neighbors, he will not only not receive the grace of those benefits for which he prayed, but will also be handed over to temptation by righteous judgment and the evil one, so that he can learn to cleanse himself from sins, eliminating his complaints about others. The law of sin is called temptation - the first man, brought into being by God, did not have it, and by “the evil one” is meant the devil, who mixed this law into human nature and deceptively convinced a person to direct all the aspirations of his soul to the unlawful instead of the permitted, and thereby bow down to the violation of the Divine commandment, as a result of which he lost the incorruptibility given to him by grace.

Or in other words: “temptation” is the voluntary disposition of the soul towards carnal passions, and “evil” is the way of actively fulfilling the passionate mood of the soul. No righteous Judge will deliver from them the one who did not forgive his debts to his debtors, but only asked for it in prayer. The Lord allows such a person, cruel and harsh in heart, to be desecrated by the law of sin and leaves him in the power of the evil one, since he preferred the passions of dishonor, the seeds of which are sown by the devil, to nature, the Creator of which is God Himself. And indeed, the Lord does not hinder him when he is willingly inclined towards carnal passions, and does not deliver him from the many different ways of actively realizing the passionate moods of the soul, since, considering nature lower than passions that do not have independent existence, he, due to the care of these passions, did not know the logos nature. And man must learn what the law of nature is and what the tyranny of passions is, not naturally, but randomly invading him due to his free consent. And he must preserve this law of nature, observing it in an activity consonant with nature, and expel the tyranny of passions from his will and by the power of reason preserve his nature immaculate, in itself pure, untainted and free from hatred and discord. Then he is obliged to make his will, which should not bring anything that is not given by the logos of nature, a companion to nature. And therefore, he should remove from himself all hatred and all discord towards those close to him by nature, so that God would hear him when he says this Prayer, and instead of simple grace would give him double grace: forgiveness of past sins, and protection and deliverance from future ones. ; and so that he would not allow him to fall into temptation and become a slave of the evil one - all this for the sole reason that he readily forgives debts to his neighbors.

Therefore, when we return, we will briefly repeat the essence of what was said. If we want to get rid of the evil one and not fall into temptation, let us believe in God and forgive the debts of our debtors. And if you do not forgive people their sins, then your Father will not forgive you your sins (Matthew 6:15). Then we will not only receive forgiveness of the sins we have committed, but we will also defeat the law of sin itself, since the Lord will not allow us to experience it, and we will trample on the parent of sin, the evil serpent, for whose deliverance we pray. And our Commander will be Christ, who has conquered the world; He equips us with the laws of the commandments, and in accordance with these laws, through the rejection of passions and through love, he binds human nature together. As the Bread of life, wisdom, knowledge and truth, He draws to Himself our insatiable desire; in fulfillment of the Father’s will, He makes us co-servants of the Angels, so that even in this life, imitating the Angels, we demonstrate in our lives heavenly pleasing to God. Then He raises us to the highest levels of the Divine, leading to the Father of lights Himself (James 1:17) and makes us, through grace-filled communication with the Holy Spirit, partakers of the Divine nature, thanks to which we will all, without limitation, be called children of God and will bear the most pure to ourselves the whole Son of God by nature - the very perfecter of this grace, from whom, through whom and in whom we have and will have being, and movement, and life.

So, let the purpose of this Prayer be for us to contemplate the sacrament of deification, so that we may know instead of what and what kind of exhaustion through the flesh of the Only Begotten has made us, and also from where and where we, who have taken the lowest place in the universe, into which the weight of sin has cast us, has elevated us The Lord by the power of His humane hand. And let us love even more the One who so wisely prepared this salvation for us. By our deeds we will show this Prayer to be fulfilled and we will be preachers of God - our true Father by grace. And let us not have the passions of dishonor, which show that we have the evil one as the father of our life, always attempting to tyrannically rule over human nature. And we will not exchange life for death without noticing it. For each of them is in the habit of rewarding those who join him. One gives eternal life to those who love Him, and the other, through the instillation of voluntary temptations, brings about death in those who approach Him.

For temptations, as can be seen from the Holy Scriptures, are of two kinds: one kind is pleasant, and the other is painful; one is voluntary and the other is involuntary. The first of these is the parent of sin, and therefore we must pray so as not to be subject to it, according to the instruction of the Lord, who says: And lead us not into temptation and Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation (Matthew 26:41). And the second type of temptation, punishing love of sin by inducing involuntary suffering, is the punisher of sin. If anyone endures such a temptation, and if he is not nailed down by the nails of vice, he will hear the great James clearly crying: Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance; patience must have its perfect effect. Patience comes from experience (James 1:2-4; Rom. 5:4). The evil one maliciously watches these and other temptations: voluntary and involuntary. In the case of the first, he, sowing seeds of bodily pleasures in the soul and irritating it with them, plots to distract it from the desire for Divine love. Temptations of the second kind he himself (sometimes slyly asks for), wanting to destroy human nature with torment and sorrow and force the soul, exhausted in suffering, to raise its thoughts towards enmity with the Creator.

But we, knowing the plans of the evil one, abhor free temptation, so as not to distract our desire from Divine love; and we will bravely endure the involuntary temptation that happens by God’s permission, in order to show that we prefer the Creator of nature to nature itself. And let all of us who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ get rid of the present pleasures that come from the evil one, and avoid future torments, becoming partakers of the visible essence of future blessings, revealed to us in Christ our Lord Himself, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, glorified by all creatures. Amen.

In order to learn a prayer or psalm faster, you just need to work on it every day. The main prayers are included in the morning and evening rules, i.e. doing what we are obliged to do every day will help us learn all the necessary prayers.

My video Our Father on Youtube.

The following prayer is from the prayer book: Psalm 90 Mysteries and interpretation of the Lord's Prayer

What many didn't know...The Lord's Prayer is not just the main words for any Christian. These lines contain a secret meaning, an understanding of God himself and everything that surrounds us. The text of this prayer is associated with many interesting facts and even secrets that can only be comprehended by a true believer.

History of Prayer

“Our Father” is the only prayer that the Lord himself gave us. It is believed that it was given to humanity by Christ, and was not invented by either saints or ordinary people, and this is precisely where its great power lies.

The text of the prayer itself sounds like this:

Our Father who art in heaven!
Hallowed be Thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts,

just as we forgive our debtors;
and do not lead us into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

These words reflect all human needs, aspirations and aspirations for the salvation of the soul. The meaning and secret of this prayer is that it is God’s universal word, which can be used both to bless one’s path and to protect oneself from evil spirits, from illness and from any misfortune.

Rescue Stories

Many Christian leaders say that reading the Lord's Prayer at the most terrible moments in life can help avoid a terrible fate. The main secret of this prayer is its power. God saved many people in danger by reciting the Lord's Prayer. Hopeless situations that put us in the face of death are the best moment to utter powerful lines.

One of the veterans of the Great Patriotic War, a certain Alexander, wrote a letter to his wife, which did not reach her. Apparently, it was lost because it was found in one of the troop locations. In it, the man said that he was surrounded by the Germans in 1944 and was awaiting his death at the hands of the enemy. “I was lying in the house with a wounded leg, I heard the sound of footsteps and German conversation. I realized that I was going to die now. Ours were close, but it was simply ridiculous to count on them. I couldn't move - not only because I was wounded, but also because I was at a dead end. There was nothing left to do but pray. I was preparing to die at the hands of the enemy. They saw me - I was scared, but did not stop reading the prayer. The German did not have any cartridges - he began to quickly talk about something with his people, but something went wrong. They suddenly rushed to run, throwing a grenade at my feet so that I could not reach it. When I read the last line of the prayer, I realized that the grenade had not exploded.”

The world knows many such stories.

Prayer saved people who met wolves in the forest - they turned around and walked away.

Prayer put me on the righteous path thieves and robbers who returned stolen things, enclosing notes of repentance and that God had advised them to do so.

This sacred text will save from cold, fire, wind and from any misfortune that may threaten life.

But the main secret of this prayer is learned not only in grief. Read “Our Father” every day - and it will fill your life with light and goodness. Thank God with this prayer that you are alive and you will always be healthy and happy.

"Our Father, Who art in heaven"

Truly, my brothers, how great is the mercy of our Lord and how indescribable is the love for mankind that He has shown and continues to show to us, ungrateful and insensitive towards Him, our Benefactor. For He not only raised us up, having fallen into sin, but also, out of His infinite Goodness, He also gave us a model of prayer, raising our minds to the highest theological spheres and preventing us from falling again, through our frivolity and feeble-mindedness, into the same sins. And therefore, as befits, from the very beginning of prayer, He lifts our mind to the highest spheres of theology. He introduces us to His Father by right of nature and to the Creator of all visible and invisible creation and reminds us that all of us, Christians, are worthy to be adopted by the Lord, and therefore we can call Him by Grace “Father.”

For when our Lord Jesus Christ became incarnate, He gave the right to all who believe in Him to become children and sons of God through the sacrament of Holy Baptism, according to the words of the Evangelist John the Theologian: “And to those who received Him, to those who believe in His name, He gave the power to be children of God." And in another place: “And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying: “Abba, Father!” This means that all believers and Orthodox Christians are children of God by their faith, by the Grace of God. In other words, since you are all children of God, the Lord and by Grace your Father sent the Holy Spirit of His Son into your hearts, mysteriously crying out from their depths: “Father, Our Father.”

And therefore the Lord showed us how to pray to our Father according to Grace, in order to remain forever and until our very end in the Grace of His Sonship. So that we remain children of God not only at the moment of our rebirth in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, but also in the future, throughout our entire lives and deeds. For the one who does not live a spiritual life and does not perform spiritual deeds worthy of the above-mentioned rebirth, but does the works of Satan, is not worthy to call God Father. Let him call the devil his father, according to the words of the Lord, Who said: “Your father is the devil; and you want to do the lusts of your father.” That is, you were born into evil by your father, that is, the devil, and you want to fulfill the evil and vicious lusts of your father.

He commands us to call God Father, firstly, to tell us that we have truly become children of God after our rebirth in Holy Baptism, and secondly, to indicate that we must preserve the traits, that is, the virtues of our Father, feeling some embarrassment for the relationship that we have with Him, for He Himself says: “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” That is: be merciful to everyone, just as your Father is merciful to everyone.

And the Apostle Paul says: “Therefore, having girded up the loins of your mind, being watchful, have complete hope in the grace that is given to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not conform to your former lusts that were in your ignorance, but, following the example of the Holy One who called you, be holy in all your actions. For it is written: Be holy, for I am holy. And if you call Father the One who impartially judges everyone according to their deeds, then spend the time of your pilgrimage with fear,
lest we be condemned by Him.”

And Basil the Great also says that “it is inherent in the One who was born of the Holy Spirit to be, as much as possible, similar to the Spirit from Whom he was born, for it is written: he who is born of a carnal father is himself flesh, that is, carnal. But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, that is, it abides in spirit.”

Thirdly, we call him “Father,” because we believe in Him, in the Only Begotten Son of God, who reconciled us with God, with our heavenly Father, us who were previously His enemies and children of wrath.

And when the Lord commands us to cry out to Him “Our Father,” He indicates to us that those who were reborn in Holy Baptism are all truly brothers and children of one Father, that is, God, in other words, children of the Holy Eastern Apostolic and Catholic Church. And therefore we must love each other, like true brothers, as the Lord bequeathed to us, saying: “This is My commandment, that you love one another.”

And in relation to all “being”, that is, to all creation and the creation around us, God appears and is called the Father of all people, both believers and non-believers. And therefore we must love all people, for the Lord honored them and created them with His Hands, and hate only malice and wickedness, and not the creation of God itself. In relation to “well-being,” that is, to our renewal, God again appears and is called the Father of all people. And therefore we Orthodox Christians must love each other, for we are doubly one both in nature and in Grace.

For all people are divided into three groups: true servants, unfaithful servants and wicked servants, the enemies of God.

True slaves are those who believe correctly, and therefore they are called Orthodox and fulfill the will of God with fear and joy.

Unfaithful slaves are those who, although they believe in Christ and received Holy Baptism, do not fulfill His commandments.

Others, although they are also His servants, that is, His creations, are evil creatures, enemies and adversaries of God, even though they are weak and insignificant, and are not capable of bringing Him any harm. And they used to believe in Christ, but then fell into various heresies.

In their number we include both the unbelievers and the wicked.

We, who have been worthy to become servants of God by Grace, having been reborn in Holy Baptism, may we not again become slaves of our enemy the devil, satisfying his evil lusts according to our will, and may we not become like those who, in the words of the Apostle, fell “in the snare of the devil, who captured them into his will.”

Since our Father is in heaven, we must also turn our minds to Heaven, to where our homeland is, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and not fix our eyes down on the earth, like pigs. We must look up at Him, our sweetest Savior and Master, and at the heavenly paradise beauty. And this should be done not only during prayer, but at all times and in any place, one must turn the mind to Heaven, so that it does not dissipate here below into corruptible and transitory things.

And therefore, if we force ourselves daily, according to the words of the Lord, that “the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it,” with God’s help it will be preserved in us “in the image,” unshakable and pure. And so little by little we will ascend from “in the image” to “in the likeness”, sanctified by God and ourselves sanctifying His Name on earth, jointly calling upon Him with the words of the main prayer “Hallowed be Thy Name.”

"Hallowed be Thy Name"

Is it really true that the Name of God is not already holy from the very beginning, and therefore we must pray for it to be holy? Is it possible to allow this to happen? Is He not the Source of all holiness? Is it not from Him that everything that is on earth and in heaven is sanctified? Why then does He command us to sanctify His Name?

The name of God in itself is holy and most holy and the source of holiness. The mere mention of Him sanctifies everything about which we pronounce Him. Therefore, it is impossible to increase or decrease His holiness. However, God desires and loves when all His creation glorifies His Name, as the prophet and psalmist David testifies: “Bless the Lord, all His works,” that is, “Glorify God, all His creatures.” And this is exactly what He wants from us. And not so much for Himself, but so that all His creation would be sanctified and glorified by Him. And therefore, whatever we do, we must do it for the glory of God, according to the words of the Apostle: “So whether you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God, so that the Name of God may be hallowed through us.”

The name of God is hallowed when we do good and holy deeds, as holy as our faith. And then people, seeing our good deeds, if they are already believing Christians, will glorify God, who makes us wise and strengthens us to work for good, but if they are unbelievers, they will come to the knowledge of the truth, seeing how our deeds confirm our faith. And the Lord calls us to do this, saying: “So let your light shine before people, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

However, the opposite also happens when, through our fault, the Name of God is blasphemed from the mouths of pagans and unbelievers, according to the apostolic words: “For for your sake, as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the pagans.” And this, undoubtedly, creates great confusion and terrible danger, because people, and especially non-believers, believe that God commands us to behave in this way.

And therefore, in order not to expose God to blasphemy and dishonor, and in order not to subject ourselves to eternal hellish torment, we must try to have not only right faith and piety, but also a virtuous life and deeds.

By a virtuous life we ​​mean fulfilling the commandments of Christ, as He Himself called upon us, saying: “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” And we will keep His commandments, in order to demonstrate in this the love that we have for Him. For our faith in Him is confirmed by keeping His commandments.

Saint John Chrysostom says: “If even the Name of the Lord Jesus cannot be mentioned without the Grace of the Holy Spirit, how much more impossible is it to keep our faith unshakable and steadfast without the help of the Holy Spirit? How can we gain the Grace of the Holy Spirit, how can we be worthy of preserving it forever in our lives? Good deeds and a virtuous life. For, just as the light of a lamp is ignited by oil, and as soon as it burns out, the light immediately goes out, so the Grace of the Holy Spirit pours out on us and illuminates us when we do good deeds and fill our soul with mercy and love for the brethren ours. If the soul has not accepted all this, Grace leaves it and moves away from us.”

So let us keep within ourselves the light of the Holy Spirit with our inexhaustible love for mankind and inexhaustible mercy for all those who need it. Otherwise, our faith will be destroyed. For faith, first of all, needs the help and presence of the Holy Spirit in order to remain indestructible. The grace of the Holy Spirit is usually preserved and abides in us in the presence of a pure and virtuous life. And therefore, if we want our faith to remain strong in us, we must strive for a holy and bright life, so that we can convince the Holy Spirit with its help to abide in us and protect our faith. For it is impossible to have an unclean and dissolute life and keep your faith pure.

And in order to prove to you the truth of my words that evil deeds destroy the strength of faith, listen to what the Apostle Paul writes in his Epistle to Timothy: “In order to advance in life and fight, you must have this weapon in your good fight, that is, have faith and good conscience (which is born from right life and good deeds). Having rejected this conscience, some subsequently suffered shipwreck in their faith.”

And in another place John Chrysostom says again: “The root of all evil is the love of money, to which, having given in, some have deviated from the faith and subjected themselves to many sorrows.” Do you see now that those who did not have a righteous conscience and gave in to the love of money have lost their faith? Thinking carefully about all this, my brothers, let us strive to lead a good life in order to receive a double reward - one prepared as a reward for our good and godly deeds, and the other as a reward for firmness in faith. What food is to the body, so is life to faith; and just as our flesh cannot by nature be sustained without food, so faith is dead without good works.”

Truly, many had faith and were Christians, but without doing righteous deeds they were not saved. Let us take care of both: faith and good deeds, so that we can continue to read the main prayer without fear.

"Thy Kingdom Come"

Since human nature of its own free will fell into slavery to the murderer devil, our Lord commands us to pray to God and our Father to free us from the bitter captivity of the devil. This, however, can only happen if we create the Kingdom of God within us. And this will happen if the Holy Spirit comes to us and drives out the tyrant and enemy of the human race from our souls, and He Himself rules in us, for only the perfect can ask for the Kingdom of God and the Father, since it is they who have achieved perfection in the maturity of spiritual age.

Those who, like me, are still tormented by remorse, do not even have the right to open their lips to ask for this, but must ask God to send us His Holy Spirit in order to illuminate us and strengthen us in fulfilling His holy will and in works of repentance. For the honest John the Baptist calls out: “Repent, for fear bring the Kingdom of Heaven closer.”

That is, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” As if to say: people, repent of the evil you are committing and get ready to meet the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, the Only Begotten Son and the Word of God, who came to rule over the whole world and save it.

And therefore we must also speak the words bequeathed to us by Saint Maximus the Confessor: “Let the Holy Spirit come and cleanse us all: both soul and body, so that we may become an abode worthy of receiving the Holy Trinity, so that God may henceforth reign in us, that is, in our hearts, for it is written: “The Kingdom of God is within us, in our hearts.” And in another place: “I and My Father will come and make our abode in him who loves My commandments.” And let sin no longer dwell in our hearts, for the apostle also says: “Let sin therefore not reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey it in its lusts.”

And therefore, drawing strength from the presence of the Holy Spirit, may we fulfill the will of God and our Heavenly Father and may we say without shame the words of our prayer: “Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth.”

“Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth”

There is nothing more blessed and more peaceful, either on earth or in heaven, than to do the will of God. Lucifer lived in heaven, but, not wanting to do the will of God, he was cast into hell. Adam lived in paradise, and all creation worshiped him as a king. Without keeping, however, God's commandments, he was plunged into the most severe torment. So, someone who does not want to do the will of God is completely overwhelmed by pride. And therefore the prophet David is right in his own way when he curses such people, saying: “You have tamed, Lord, the proud who refuse to obey Your law. Cursed are those who turn away from Your commandments.” In another place he says: “The proud commit many iniquities and crimes.”

With all these words, the prophet indicates that the cause of lawlessness is pride. And on the contrary, the cause of pride is lawlessness. And therefore it is impossible to find a humble person among the lawless, and a person keeping the law of God among the proud, for pride is the beginning and end of all evil.

The will of God is that we get rid of evil and do good, according to the words of the prophet: “Avoid evil and do good,” that is, “avoid evil and do good.” Good is what the Holy Scripture says about and what the Holy Fathers of the Church conveyed to us, and not what each of us unreasonably proclaims on our own and which is often harmful to souls and leads people to destruction.

If we follow what is accepted in the world, or if each of us acts in accordance with our desires, then we Christians will not differ in any way from the infidels who do not believe in the Scripture and do not live according to it. We will also not be different from those people who lived in times of anarchy and who are described in the Book of Judges. It says, “Everyone did what seemed right to him in his own eyes and in his own understanding, for in those days Israel had no king.”

And therefore the Jews wanted to put our Lord to death out of envy, while Pilate wanted to let Him go, for he did not find guilt on Him for execution. They, asking for a word, said: “We have a law, and according to our law He must die, for he called himself the Son of God.” All this, however, was a lie. For there is no such thing in the law that the one who calls himself the son of God must die, for the Holy Scripture itself calls people gods and sons of God. "I said that you are gods and sons of the Most High - all of you." And therefore the Jews, when they said that they “have a law,” lied, for such a law does not exist.

Do you see, my beloved, that they have turned their envy and malice into law? The wise Solomon speaks about these people in these words: “Let us make our strength a law and secretly establish forges of righteousness.” Both the law, of course, and the prophets wrote that Christ would come and be incarnate and die for the sake of the salvation of the world, and not for the sake of the goal set by them, the lawless.

So, let us try to avoid what the Jews fell into. Let us strive to keep the commandments of our Lord and not deviate from what is written in the Holy Scriptures. For, as the Evangelist John says: “His commandments are not grievous.” And since our Lord completely fulfilled the will of His Father on earth, we must also ask Him to give us strength and enlighten us, so that we too would fulfill His holy will on earth, as the holy angels do it in heaven. For “without His help we can do nothing.” And just as the angels unquestioningly obey all His Divine commands, so we, all people, must submit to His Divine will, contained in the Holy Scriptures, so that there may be peace on earth between people, as well as in heaven between the angels, and so that we can call boldly to To God our Father: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

“Give us this day our daily bread”

Bread is called daily bread in three senses. And in order to know when we pray what kind of bread we ask from God and our Father, let us consider the meaning of each of these meanings.

Firstly, We call daily bread ordinary bread, bodily food mixed with the bodily essence, so that our body grows and strengthens, and so that it does not die of hunger.

Consequently, meaning bread in this sense, we should not look for those dishes that will give our body nourishment and sensuality, about which the Apostle James says: “You ask the Lord and do not receive, for you do not ask the Lord what is necessary, but what use it for your lusts." And in another place: “You lived luxuriously on earth and enjoyed; feed your hearts as for the day of slaughter.”

But our Lord says: “Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with overeating, drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and lest that day come upon you suddenly.”

And therefore, we should ask only the necessary food, for the Lord condescends to our human weakness and commands us to ask only for our daily bread, but not for excesses. If it were different, He would not have included the words “give us this day” in the main prayer. And St. John Chrysostom interprets this “today” as “always.” And therefore these words have a synoptic (overview) character.

Saint Maximus the Confessor calls the body a friend of the soul. The inflower instructs the soul so that it does not care about the body “with both feet.” That is, so that she would not care about him unnecessarily, but would only care with “one leg.” But this should happen rarely, so that, according to him, the body does not become satiated and rise up over the soul, and so that it does the same evil that demons, our enemies, do to us.

Let us listen to the Apostle Paul, who says: “Having food and clothing, let us be content with this. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and into the devil’s snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts that plunge people and lead them into disaster and destruction.”

Perhaps, however, some people think this way: since the Lord commands us to ask Him for the necessary food, I will sit idle and carefree, waiting for God to send me food.

We will answer in the same way that care and care are one thing, and work is another. Care is a distraction and agitation of the mind about many and excessive problems, while to work means to work, that is, to sow or labor in other human labors.

So, a person should not be overwhelmed by worries and cares and should not worry and darken his mind, but place all his hopes on God and entrust all his worries to Him, as the prophet David says: “Cast your sorrow on the Lord, and He will nourish you.” ”, that is, “Cast the care of your food on the Lord, and He will feed you.”

And he who places his hope most in the works of his own hands, or in the labors of himself and his neighbors, let him hear what the prophet Moses says in the Book of Deuteronomy: “He who walks on his hands and trusts and trusts in the works of his hands is unclean, and he He who falls into many worries and sorrows is also unclean. And the one who always walks on four is also unclean.”

And he walks both on his hands and on his feet, who places all his hopes on his hands, that is, on those deeds that his hands do, and on his skill, according to the words of St. Nilus of Sinai: “He walks on four who, having given himself up to matters of the senses, the dominant mind is constantly occupied with them. A multi-legged man is one who is surrounded by the body from everywhere and is based in everything on it and embraces it with both hands and with all his strength.”

Prophet Jeremiah says:“Cursed be the man who trusts in man and makes the flesh his support, and whose heart withdraws from the Lord. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.”

People, why are we worrying in vain? The path of life is short, as both the prophet and king David say to the Lord: “Behold, Lord, You have made the days of my life so short that they are numbered on the fingers of one hand. And the composition of my nature is nothing before Your eternity. But not only me, but everything is in vain. Every person living in this world is vain. For a restless person does not live his life in reality, but life resembles his painted picture. And therefore he worries in vain and collects wealth. For he does not really know for whom he is collecting this wealth.”

Man, come to your senses. Don’t rush like crazy all day long with a thousand things to do. And at night again, do not sit down to calculate the devil’s interest and the like, for your whole life, in the end, passes through the accounts of Mammon, that is, in wealth that comes from injustice. And therefore you do not find even a little time to remember your sins and cry about them. Do you not hear the Lord telling us: “No one can serve two Lords.” “You cannot,” he says, “serve both God and Mammon.” For He wants to say that a person cannot serve two masters, and have his heart in God, and wealth in unrighteousness.

Have you not heard about the seed that fell among the thorns, that the thorns choked it, and that it did not bear any fruit? This means that the word of God fell on a man who was mired in worries and worries about his wealth, and this man did not bear any fruit of salvation. Don’t you see here and there rich people who have done something similar to you, that is, who have collected great wealth, but then the Lord breathed on their hands, and the wealth left their hands, and they lost everything, and with it their minds and Now they wander around the earth, overwhelmed by anger and demons. They received what they deserved, for they made wealth their God and applied their minds to it.

Hear, O man, what the Lord says to us: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” And you should not collect treasures here on earth, lest you hear from the Lord the same terrible words that He said to one rich man: “You fool, this night they will take your soul from you, and to whom will you leave everything that you have collected?” .

Let us come to our God and Father and cast all the worries about our lives on Him, and He will take care of us. As the Apostle Peter says: let us come to God, as the prophet calls us, saying: “Come to Him and be enlightened, and your faces will not be ashamed that you were left without help.”

This is how, with God’s help, we interpreted for you the first meaning of your daily bread.

Second meaning: Our daily bread is the Word of God, as Holy Scripture testifies: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

The Word of God is the teaching of the Holy Spirit, in other words, all of Holy Scripture. Both the Old Testament and the New. From this Holy Scripture, as from a source, the Holy Fathers and teachers of our Church drew, watering us with the pure spring waters of their God-inspired teaching. And therefore we must accept the books and teachings of the Holy Fathers as our daily bread, so that our soul does not die from hunger for the Word of life even before the body dies, as happened with Adam, who violated the commandment of God.

Those who do not want to listen to the Word of God and do not allow others to listen to it, either with their words or the bad example they set for others, and in a similar way, those who not only do not contribute to the creation of schools or other similar endeavors for the benefit of Christian children, but also repair obstacles to those who wish to help will inherit the words “Alas!” and “Woe to you!” addressed to the Pharisees. And also those priests who, through negligence, do not teach their parishioners everything that they need to know for salvation, and those bishops who not only do not teach their flock the commandments of God and everything necessary for their salvation, but through their unrighteous lives become a hindrance and a cause departure from the faith among ordinary Christians - and they will inherit “Alas!” and “Woe to you!”, addressed to the Pharisees and scribes, for they close the Kingdom of Heaven to people, and neither themselves enter into it, nor others - those who wish to enter - are not allowed in. And therefore these people, as bad stewards, will lose the protection and love of the people.

In addition, teachers who teach Christian children must also instruct them and lead them to good morals, that is, to good morals. For what is the benefit if you teach a child to read and write and other philosophical sciences, but leave him with a corrupt disposition? How can all this benefit him? And what kind of success can this person achieve, either in spiritual matters or in worldly ones? Of course, none.

I say this so that God would not tell us those words that He spoke to the Jews through the mouth of the prophet Amos: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the earth—not a famine of bread, not a thirst for water, but a thirst for hearing the words of the Lord." This punishment befell the Jews for their cruel and unyielding intentions. And therefore, so that the Lord does not say such words to us, and so that this terrible grief does not befall us, may we all awaken from the heavy sleep of negligence and be saturated with the words and teachings of God, each according to our own abilities, so that bitterness does not overtake our soul and eternal death.

This is the second meaning of daily bread, which is just as superior in importance to the first meaning as the life of the soul is more important and necessary than the life of the body.

The third meaning: daily bread is the Body and Blood of the Lord, as different from the Word of God as the sun is from its rays. In the Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist, the entire God-man, like the sun, enters, unites and becomes one with the whole person. It illuminates, enlightens and sanctifies all mental and physical powers and feelings of a person and leads him from corruption to incorruption. And it is precisely for this reason that we call our daily bread the Holy Communion of the Most Pure Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it supports and restrains the essence of the soul and strengthens it to fulfill the commandments of the Lord Christ and to any other virtue. And this is true food for both soul and body, for our Lord also says: “For My Flesh is truly food, and My Blood is truly drink.”

If anyone doubts that the Body of our Lord is called our daily bread, let him listen to what the holy teachers of our Church say about this. And first of all, the luminary of Nyssa, the Divine Gregory, saying: “If a sinner comes to himself, like the prodigal son from the parable, if he desires the Divine food of his Father, if he returns to His rich meal, then he will enjoy this meal, where there is plenty the daily bread that feeds the Lord's workers. The workers are those who work and toil in His vineyard, in the hope of receiving wages in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Saint Isidore of Pelusiot says: “The prayer that the Lord taught us does not contain anything earthly, but its entire content is heavenly and is aimed at spiritual benefit, even that which seems small and insignificant in the soul. Many wise people believe that the Lord wants to teach us with this prayer the meaning of the Divine Word and bread, which feeds the incorporeal soul, and in an incomprehensible way comes and unites with its essence. And that is why bread was called daily bread, because the very idea of ​​essence is more suitable for the soul than for the body.”

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem also says: “Ordinary bread is not daily bread, but this holy bread (the Body and Blood of the Lord) is daily bread. And it is called essential, because it is communicated to your entire composition of soul and body.”

Saint Maximus the Confessor says: “If we adhere in life to the words of the Lord’s Prayer, then let us accept, as our daily bread, as vital food for our souls, but also for the preservation of everything that has been given to us by the Lord, the Son and the Word of God, for He said: “I am the bread that came down from heaven” and gives life to the world. And this happens in the soul of everyone who receives Communion, according to the righteousness and knowledge and wisdom that he possesses.”

Saint John of Damascus says: “This bread is the firstfruits of the bread to come, which is our daily bread. For the word daily means either the bread of the future, that is, the next century, or the bread eaten to preserve our being. Consequently, in both senses, the Body of the Lord will be equally appropriately called our daily bread.”

In addition, Saint Theophylact adds that “The Body of Christ is our daily bread, for whose uncondemned Communion we must pray.”

However, this does not mean that since the Holy Fathers consider the Body of Christ to be our daily bread, they do not consider ordinary bread necessary to support our body to be daily. For he too is the gift of God, and no food is considered contemptible and reprehensible, according to the Apostle, if it is accepted and eaten with thanksgiving: “Nothing is reprehensible if it is received with thanksgiving.”

Ordinary bread is incorrectly called daily bread, not according to its basic meaning, because it strengthens only the body, not the soul. Basically, however, and according to generally accepted opinion, we call the Body of the Lord and the Word of God our daily bread, for they strengthen both body and soul. Many holy men testify to this with their lives: for example, Moses, who fasted for forty days and nights without eating bodily food. The prophet Elijah also fasted for forty days. And later, after the incarnation of our Lord, many saints lived for a long time only on the Word of God and Holy Communion, without eating other food.

And therefore, we, who have been worthy of being reborn spiritually in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, must continually accept this spiritual food with ardent love and a contrite heart, in order to live a spiritual life and remain invulnerable to the poison of the spiritual serpent - the devil. For even Adam, if he had eaten this food, would not have experienced the double death of both soul and body.

It is necessary to partake of this spiritual bread with due preparation, for our God is also called a burning fire. And therefore, only those who eat the Body of Christ and drink His Most Pure Blood with a clear conscience, having first sincerely confessed their sins, are cleansed, enlightened and sanctified by this bread. Woe, however, to those who receive communion unworthily, without first confessing their sins to the priest. For the Divine Eucharist burns them and completely corrupts their souls and bodies, as happened to the one who came to the wedding feast without a wedding garment, as the Gospel says, that is, without having done good deeds and not having fruits worthy of repentance.

People who listen to satanic songs, stupid conversations and useless chatter and other similar meaningless things become unworthy of listening to the word of God. The same applies to those who live in sin, for they cannot partake and partake of the immortal life to which the Divine Eucharist leads, for their spiritual powers are killed by the sting of sin. For it is obvious that both the members of our body and the containers of vital forces receive life from the soul, but if any of the members of the body begins to decompose or dry up, then life will no longer be able to flow into it, for the vital force does not flow into dead members. Likewise, the soul is alive as long as life force from God enters it. Having sinned and stopped accepting vital forces, she dies in agony. And after some time the body dies. And so the whole person perishes in eternal hell.

So, we talked about the third and final meaning of our daily bread, which is just as necessary and beneficial for us as Holy Baptism. And therefore it is necessary to regularly partake of the Divine Sacraments and accept with fear and love the daily bread that we ask in the Lord’s Prayer from our heavenly Father, as long as “this day” lasts.

This “today” has three meanings:

firstly, it can mean “every day”;

secondly, the entire life of each person;

and thirdly, the present life of the “seventh day”, which we are completing.

In the next century there will be neither “today” nor “tomorrow”, but this entire century will be one eternal day

“And forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors.”

Our Lord, knowing that there is no repentance in hell and that it is impossible for a person not to sin after Holy Baptism, teaches us to say to God and our Father: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Since before this, in the Lord's Prayer, God spoke about the holy bread of the Divine Eucharist and called on everyone not to dare to partake of it without proper preparation, therefore now he tells us that this preparation consists in asking forgiveness from God and from our brothers and only then proceed to the Divine Mysteries, as it is said in another place of Holy Scripture: “So, man, if you bring your gift to the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and bring your gift.”

In addition to all this, our Lord touches on three other issues in the words of this prayer:

Firstly, he calls on the righteous to humble themselves, which He says in another place: “So you too, when you have done everything commanded you, say: we are slaves, worthless, because we did what we had to do”;

Secondly, He advises those who sin after Baptism not to despair;

and thirdly, he reveals with these words that the Lord desires and loves when we have compassion and mercy for each other, for nothing makes a person more like God than mercy.

And therefore, let us treat our brothers the way we want the Lord to treat us. And let us not say about anyone that he grieves us so much with his sins that we cannot forgive him. For if we think how much we grieve God with our sins every day, every hour and every second, and He forgives us for this, then we will immediately forgive our brothers.

And if we think how numerous and incomparably greater our sins are in comparison with the sins of our brothers, that even the Lord Himself, Who is truth in His very essence, likened them to ten thousand talents, while He likened the sins of our brothers to a hundred denarii, then we will be convinced we are aware of how truly insignificant the sins of our brothers are in comparison with our sins. And therefore, if we forgive our brothers their small guilt before us, not only with our lips, as many do, but with all our hearts, God will forgive us our great and countless sins, of which we are guilty before Him. If we happen to fail to forgive the sins of our brothers, all our other virtues, which, as it seems to us, we have acquired, will be in vain.

Why do I say that our virtues will be in vain? For our sins cannot be forgiven, according to the decision of the Lord, who said: “If you do not forgive your neighbors their sins, then your Heavenly Father will not forgive you your sins.” In another place, he says about a man who has not forgiven his brother: “Evil servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me; Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your companion, just as I had mercy on you?” And then, as it is said further, the Lord became angry and handed him over to the torturers until he repaid the entire debt to Him. And then: “So will My Heavenly Father do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother his sins from his heart.”

Many say that sins are forgiven in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Others claim the opposite: that they are forgiven only if they confess to a priest. We tell you that both preparation and confession are obligatory for the remission of sins, and the Divine Eucharist, for neither one gives everything, nor the other. But what happens here is similar to how, after washing a dirty dress, it must be dried in the sun to remove dampness and moisture, otherwise it will remain wet and rot, and a person will not be able to wear it. And just as a wound, having been cleansed of worms and removed the decomposed tissue, cannot be left without being lubricated, so having washed away the sin, and cleansed it with confession, and removed its decomposed remains, it is necessary to receive the Divine Eucharist, which completely dries up the wound and heals it, like some kind of healing ointment. Otherwise, in the words of the Lord, “a person again falls into the first state, and the last is worse for them than the first.”

And therefore it is necessary to first cleanse yourself of any filth by confession. And, first of all, cleanse yourself of rancor and only then approach the Divine Mysteries. For we need to know that just as love is the fulfillment and end of all law, so rancor and hatred are the abolition and violation of all law and any virtue. The inflower, wanting to show us all the malice of the vindictive, says: “The path of the vindictive is to death.” And in another place: “He who is vindictive is a transgressor.”

It was precisely this bitter leaven of rancor that the accursed Judas carried within himself, and therefore, as soon as he took the bread into his hands, Satan entered into him.

Let us fear, brothers, condemnation and the hellish torments of rancor and forgive our brothers for everything they have done wrong to us. And we will do this, not only when we gather for Communion, but always, as the Apostle calls us to do with these words: “If you are angry, do not sin: let not the sun set on your anger and malice on your brother.” And in another place: “And do not give place to the devil.” That is, do not let the devil take up residence in you, so that you can cry out with boldness to God and the remaining words of the Lord’s Prayer.

"And do not lead us into temptation"

The Lord calls us to ask God and our Father not to allow us to fall into temptation. And the prophet Isaiah on behalf of God says: “I form light and create darkness, I create peace and allow disasters to happen.” The prophet Amos says in a similar way: “Is there a disaster in a city that the Lord would not allow?”

From these words, many of the ignorant and unprepared fall into various thoughts about God. It is as if God Himself throws us into temptation. All doubts on this issue are dispelled by the Apostle James with these words: “When tempted, no one should say: God is tempting me; because God is not tempted by evil and does not tempt anyone Himself, but everyone is tempted by being carried away and deceived by his own lust; lust, having conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin that is committed gives birth to death.”

Temptations that come to people are of two types. One type of temptation comes from lust and happens according to our will, but also at the instigation of demons. Another type of temptation comes from sadness, suffering and misfortune in life, and therefore these temptations seem more bitter and sad to us. Our will does not participate in these temptations, but only the Devil assists.

The Jews experienced these two types of temptations. However, they chose of their own free will the temptations that come from lust, and strived for wealth, for glory, for freedom in evil and for idolatry, and therefore God allowed them to experience everything the opposite, that is, poverty, dishonor, captivity, and so on. And God again frightened them with all these troubles, so that they would return to life in God through repentance.

These various guilts of God's punishments are called "disaster" and "evil" by the prophets. As we said earlier, this happens because everything that causes pain and grief in people, people are accustomed to calling evil. But this is not true. That's just how people perceive it. These troubles occur not according to the “initial” will of God, but according to his “subsequent” will, for the admonition and benefit of people.

Our Lord, combining the first cause of temptation with the second, that is, combining temptations that come from lust with temptations that come from grief and suffering, gives them a single name, calling them “temptations,” because they tempt and test a person’s intentions. However, in order to better understand all this, you must know that everything that happens to us comes in three types: good, evil and mean. Good includes prudence, mercy, justice and everything like them, that is, qualities that can never turn into evil. The evil ones include fornication, inhumanity, injustice and everything similar to them, which can never turn into good. The averages are wealth and poverty, health and illness, life and death, fame and infamy, pleasure and pain, freedom and slavery, and others similar to them, in some cases called good, and in others evil, according to how they governed by human intention.

So, people divide these average qualities into two types, and one of these parts is called good, because this is what they love, for example, wealth, fame, pleasures and others. Others of them they call evil, because they have an aversion to it, for example, poverty, pain, dishonor, and so on. And therefore, if we do not want what we ourselves consider evil to befall us, we will not do real evil, as the prophet advises us: “Man, do not enter of your own free will into any evil and into any sin, and then the Angel who guards you will not allow you to experience any evil.”

And the prophet Isaiah says: “If you are willing and obedient, and keep all My commandments, you will eat the good things of the land; But if you deny and persist, the sword of your enemies will devour you.” And still the same prophet says to those who do not fulfill His commandments: “Go into the flame of your fire, into the flame that you kindle with your sins.”

Of course, the devil first tries to fight us with voluptuous temptations, for he knows how prone we are to lust. If he understands that our will in this is subordinate to his will, he distances us from the grace of God that protects us. Then he asks God for permission to bring bitter temptation upon us, that is, grief and disaster, in order to completely destroy us, due to his great hatred of us, causing us to fall into despair from many griefs. If in the first case our will does not follow his will, that is, we do not fall into a voluptuous temptation, he again raises a second temptation of grief on us, in order to force us, now out of grief, to fall into a voluptuous temptation.

And therefore the Apostle Paul calls to us, saying: “Be sober, my brethren, watch and be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” God allows us to fall into temptations, either according to His economy in order to test us, like the righteous Job and other saints, according to the words of the Lord to His disciples: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to sow you like wheat, that is, to shake you temptations." And God allows us to fall into temptation by His permission, just as He allowed David to fall into sin, and the Apostle Paul to renounce Him, in order to save us from complacency. However, there are also temptations that come from being abandoned by God, that is, from the loss of Divine grace, as was the case with Judas and the Jews.

And the temptations that come to the saints according to God’s economy come to the envy of the devil, in order to demonstrate to everyone the righteousness and perfection of the saints, and in order to shine even brighter for them after their victory over their adversary the devil. Temptations that occur with permission are sent in order to become an obstacle to the path of sin that has happened, is happening, or is yet to happen. The same temptations that are sent out of abandonment by God are caused by a person’s sinful life and bad intentions, and are allowed for his complete destruction and destruction.

And therefore, we must not only flee from temptations that come from lust, as from the poison of an evil serpent, but also if such a temptation comes to us against our will, we must not fall into it in any way.

And in everything that concerns the temptations in which our body is tested, let us not expose ourselves to danger through our pride and insolence, but let us ask God to protect us from them, if such is His will. And may we bring Him joy without falling into these temptations. If these temptations come, let us accept them with great joy and pleasure, as great gifts. We will only ask Him for this, so that He might strengthen us to victory to the very end over our tempter, for this is exactly what He tells us with the words “and do not lead us into temptation.” That is, we ask not to leave us, so as not to fall into the maw of the mental dragon, as the Lord tells us in another place: “Watch and pray, so as not to fall into temptation.” That is, so as not to be overcome by temptation, for the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

However, no one, hearing that one must avoid temptations, should justify himself by “excusing sinful deeds,” referring to his weakness and the like when temptations come. For in difficult times, when temptations come, the one who is afraid of them and does not resist them will thereby renounce the truth. For example: if a person happens to be subjected to threats and violence for his faith, or in order to renounce the truth, or to trample on justice, or to renounce mercy towards others or any other commandment of Christ, if in all these cases he retreats out of fear for his flesh and cannot bravely resist these temptations, then let this person know that he will not be a partaker of Christ and in vain he is called a Christian. Unless he later repents of this and sheds bitter tears. And he must repent, for he did not imitate the true Christians, the martyrs, who suffered so much for their faith. He did not imitate Saint John Chrysostom, who went through so much torment for justice, the Monk Zosima, who endured hardships for his mercy towards his brethren, and many others whom we cannot even list now and who endured many torments and temptations in order to fulfill the law and commandments of Christ . We must also keep these commandments, so that they free us not only from temptations and sins, but also from the evil one, according to the words of the Lord’s Prayer.

"But deliver us from evil"

Mainly, brethren, the devil himself is called the evil one, for he is the beginning of all sin and the creator of all temptation. It is from the actions and instigations of the evil one that we learn to ask God to free us and believe that He will not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength, in the words of the Apostle, that God “will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength, but with temptation He will also give you relief, so so that you can bear it." It is, however, necessary and obligatory not to forget to ask Him and pray to Him for this in humility.

“For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen" ☨

Our Lord, knowing that human nature always falls into doubt due to its lack of faith, consoles us by saying: since you have such a powerful and glorious Father and King, do not hesitate to turn to Him with requests from time to time. Only, when bothering Him, do not forget to do it the way the widow bothered her master and the heartless judge, saying to Him: “Lord, free us from our adversary, for yours is the everlasting Kingdom, invincible power and incomprehensible glory. For You are a mighty King, and You command and punish our enemies, and You are the glorious God, and You glorify and exalt those who glorify You, and You are a loving and humane Father, and You care and love those who through Holy Baptism have been deemed worthy to become Your sons, and they loved You with all their hearts, now and ever, and to the ages of ages.” Amen.