Feast Day: April 1st
& October 11th – Synaxis of the Elders of Optina Monastery
The Life of Saint Barsanuphius: Saint Barsanuphius Commemorated many Saints each day during his Rule of Prayer, and this was not accidental. Each Saint, he once explained, had some particular importance in his life. If, for example, some significant event took place, he would look to see which Saints were commemorated on that day, then he would begin to Commemorate them each day. Later he noticed that on their Feast Day, they would often deliver him from some danger or trouble…
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Prayers
Saint Barsanuphius Pray to God for us
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“If you look at life carefully, then all of it is full of Miracles, but we often do not notice them and pass by indifferently. May the Lord give us reason to carefully spend the days of our life.”
“Our whole life goes on in a bustle. The mind is in the midst of worldly thoughts and temptations. Little by little it will be able to remember God in such a way that it will think about Him without thinking and remember Him without remembering. So long as your mind keeps moving. As long as you have this drive that pushes you forward, do not be afraid, your boat is still traversing the sea of life under the shadow of the Cross. Don’t be afraid of possible storms. No voyage can be accomplished without bad weather, the least so the journey of life.”
“Our whole life is the great Mystery of God. All circumstances of life, however small and insignificant they may seem, are of great importance. We will understand the meaning of the present life only in the age to come! We should be very careful, and yet we flip through our lives as if they were books, sheet by sheet, not knowing what they contain.”
“The best guide for us is to read the Lives of the Saints.”
“Eternal torment and eternal bliss are not things that only come from the outside. They are primarily found within man himself. The Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). The feelings a person plants in his Soul during his or her lifetime will go into Eternity with Him.”
“There is a lot of bitterness in life: failure, illness, poverty, and so on. But if a person believes in God, then the Lord can sweeten a bitter life.”
“Life is blessedness! These words might seem strange. How can one call life blessedness when at every step one encounters failures, disappointments and grief? How much sorrow do people endure? Life, people say, is labor, and often thankless labor – what kind of blessedness is there in this? And all the same I repeat: life is blessedness. Life becomes blessedness for us when we learn to fulfill Christ’s Commandments and to love Christ. Then it will be a joy to live, a joy to endure the afflictions that come upon us, while before us will glow the Ineffable Light of the Sun of Righteousness – the Lord. All the Gospel Commandments begin with the word, “blessed”: blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers … From this it follows, as a truth, that the fulfilling of the Commandment offers people the highest happiness”.
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“If we exclaim, ‘All Saints, Pray to God for us!’, then the whole Heaven will immediately Pray, ‘O Lord, help them!'”
“Prayer begins with an effort of the Soul. The mind listens to the words of Prayer. Then the meaning of prayer touches the human spirit, and the spirit rejoices, driven by the Divine power of Prayer.”
“Prayer is difficult because it is opposed by our old self. It is also difficult because the evil one resists a Praying man with all his might. To the devil, Prayer is the foretaste of death, though of course he is already dead Spiritually. However, Prayer strikes him again, and that is why he resists it in every way. Even Saints find Prayer difficult at times, even though you’d think that they would only be comforted by it. Indeed, Prayer brings with it a great comfort, not only to a righteous person, but also to a sinner.”
“The more we read the Gospel, the clearer the difference between it and the best works of the greatest human minds. No matter how beautiful and insightful any famous work, scientific or artistic, might be, one can understand any of them to the end. They are deep, but they have a bottom nevertheless. The Gospel has no bottom. The more you look at it, the wider its meaning, infinite for any brilliant mind, unfolds.”
“We have one sword – the Prayer of Jesus. It is said, ‘Strike the unseen enemies with this sword, for there is no more powerful weapon, either in Heaven or on Earth.'”
“In times of affliction, unceasingly call out to the Merciful God in Prayer. The unceasing invocation of the Name of God in Prayer is a treatment for the Soul which kills not only the passions, but even their very operation. As a doctor finds the necessary medicine, and it works in such a way that the sick person does not understand, in just the same way the Name of God, when you call upon it, kills all the passions, although we don’t know how this happens.”
“Prayer in Church is important. The best thoughts and feelings come in Church, yes, and the enemy attacks more violently in Church, but with the sign of the Cross and the Jesus Prayer, you drive him away. It is good to stand in some dark corner in church and to Pray to God. ‘Let us lift up our hearts!’ the Priest exclaims, but our mind often creeps along the ground, thinking about indecent things. Fight against this.”
“In the struggle of Prayer, it is absolutely necessary to force oneself, and compel oneself, to Pray.”
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“We must fight against passions, and if they win, we must repent and confess all our sins. There will be no repentance at the Last Judgment, but only the God’s Truth.”
“Do not stop at merely being good on the outside. Although it is indispensable, the main thing is to eradicate passions, especially malice, from your heart…”
“The Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Confession, tears up the promissory notes. It destroys the record of our sins. The Communion of the True Body and Blood of Christ gives us the power to be born again Spiritually. Although this does not occur immediately, and is perhaps imperceptible to us: the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation (Luke 17:20); yet there is no doubt that this rebirth will happen sooner or later, and we will begin a new life, a life in Christ.”
“Angels cry when the Christian falls into despondency and doubts God’s Mercy.”
“You need not be despondent. Let those be despondent who do not believe in God. For them sorrow is burdensome, of course, because besides Earthly enjoyment they have nothing. But believers must not be despondent, for through sorrows they receive the right of sonship, without which is impossible to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“Yes, one must disregard doubts, just like lustful and blasphemous thoughts; pay no attention to them. Disregard them, and your enemy, the devil, will not be able to withstand it; he’ll leave you, since he’s proud and cannot bear the disdain. But if you enter into conversation with them – since the lustful thoughts, blasphemies and doubts are not yours – he’ll bombard you, swamp you, kill you.”
“Can you forgive?” “I can not!” “But you need to forgive!” “This is beyond my power!” “Not enough strength? So ask God. Turn to Him and say: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, and help me to forgive.’ Tell me again, twice, three times… and what will happen? You yourself will learn from experience to forgive the offender.”
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“It’s impossible to learn to fulfill the Commandments of God without labor, and this labor is of three parts – Prayer, fast and Spiritual sobriety.”
“We know the power of fasting and its significance at least from the fact that it is somehow particularly hated by our enemy the devil.”
“In order to enter the Kingdom you must first of all be humble. How do you receive humility? How do you learn this great art? We must implore the Lord to bestow this gift on us. In one of the evening Prayers we read: ‘Lord, grant me humility, chastity and obedience.”
“There are two kinds of fasting: inner and outward fasting. The first is the safeguarding of our vision, hearing and all our feelings from all bad and impure things; the second is the abstinence from certain kinds of food. Both of them are inseparable from one another. Some people pay attention only to the outward fasting and do not comprehend the inner fasting at all.”
“If you are living sinfully, then no one bothers you, but if you begin to live righteously – immediately come tribulations, temptations, and insults.”
“A man who is growing cold towards God begins first of all to flee attending Church. At first he tries to come to Services later, and then he ceases altogether to visit God’s Temple… Here in the Skete we even make the rounds of the Cells on Feast Days, so that no one evades Church Services.”
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“What does a Monk do? Nothing. Preserve his Soul from destructive thoughts.”
“Monks and all our brothers are also human beings. Since they are human beings, it is natural that they also have some passions and vices: one person is proud, the other is evil, the third is a fornicator, and so on. All these people came here, to the “hospital” (the Optina Pustyn) to be healed of whatever it is that they suffer from. When you notice the vices of the monastics, you should try not to judge – this is our motto. All people are weak, all have passions, and we must forgive each other.”
“Monasticism is not solely about the undercassock and porridge. There is a man who puts on an undercassock, starts eating porridge and thinks that he’s become a monk now. No. Appearances alone won’t do any good. Sure, you do have to wear Monastic clothes and keep the fast, but that’s not all. A lamp that doesn’t shine does not justify its purpose, that is, to shine. What’s missing, then? Fire. You need a wick and kerosene, but if there’s no fire, if you don’t light up the lamp, it doesn’t do anybody any good. Once you light it up, the light comes right out. The same is true of Monasticism: appearance alone is of no use. You need the inner light.”
“I am not sinning if I say that only Monks can achieve supreme bliss. You can be saved in the world, but it is impossible to be completely whitened, washed from your old self, rise the equal Angelic height, to the highest Spiritual creativity living in the world, that is, the whole way of worldly life, formed according to its on laws, destroys, slows down the growth of the Soul. Therefore, people grow to the equal Angles’ heights only in laboratories called Monasteries.”
“Great gifts in the hands of an inexperienced person can not only do damage but also destroy him completely. That man can become proud; and pride is worse than any vice: God opposes the proud. One must suffer to receive any gift.”
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“Where people are, there is vanity. Vanity silences the voice of the human Soul.”
“Everyone knows the story about the young man in the Gospels. He approaches Christ and asks how he can inherit eternal life. The Lord replies, do thus and thus. “All this I have fulfilled,” says the young man. “Then if you wish to be perfect,” says Christ, “sell your possessions and give everything to the poor.” This commandment of Christ has profound meaning. The possessions which it necessary for us to give away are those things which we have received from the world. We must take them out of our heart and give them away, so that there will be nothing worldly there, so that Christ alone will be there. I earnestly entreat you — preserve your heart; let it belong entirely to the Lord. Don’t let anyone within it besides your spiritual father, and perhaps also a friend in the Lord. There are possessions which one need not give away. The well-known and comprehensively educated physician, Professor Prigorov, was possessed of great erudition, and made use of it to the glory of God. When he was asked how he could combine the fulfillment of all the rites and dictates of the Orthodox Church with his enormous practice, he replied, “The Lord helps me, since I use my knowledge to the glory of my Lord Jesus Christ.” Such riches, that is, such knowledge, one need not renounce.”