Better bit by bit
Dear in the Lord E.!
You want to introduce a monarchical-patriotic spirit into the monastery.
This would be wittingly destroying the monastic spirit, and therefore I have only one piece of advice for you — live at home and do the work God has blessed you to do for the moment: teaching.
It is better to participate in something constructive bit by bit than by one broad sweep; you might even demolish it by your ignorance or misunderstanding.
Remember how you were when you were unchurched and compare it with your present state. The difference is substantial. I think that your development will not cease. Remember, that everything is timely for those who know how to wait (using their minds, of course).
May God give you wisdom!
Test the quality of your longing
Dear in the Lord G.!
It is not difficult to test the quality of your longing. Get the blessing of the priest to whom you confess, and that of your parents, and go to Solovki as a laborer. Work there for a while, observe yourself and the monastic way of life.
May God give you wisdom!
Monastic anniversary
Dear Fr. T.!
God preserves us even from the machinations of unreasoning spiritual children. They have only conceived some bad thing, and I am already informed of it. My dears (for now, I still call you this way), the monastic anniversary is the day of repose, and anything earlier than that is only everyday monastic life: sorrows, afflictions, and the cross. Everything that you have contrived is only extra sorrow and burden upon my earthly bonds.
How far you are from me if you could think about empty, external things. Wipe all thought from your consciousness of anniversary albums, and the fireworks of verbal shells. Pray and return to me in oneness of spirit.
My sermons, granted they are blessed by the church hierarchy, have a right to live—this is the work of a priest, but that which you are dreaming up is an obvious instigation of the enemy, which cannot endure our unity of love in God.
May this not be, Fr. T…. Always remember that we stand before the Lord, and the labors of life are only obedience; we are in any case only slaves. So let us live like slaves of God: everything hidden deep in the heart, and nothing out for show to the crowds. I hope that you have understood my sorrow in connection with your intrigue. How could such a thing have come into your head?
