(Pitying a beggar as a beggar {the poor—as the poor, the sick—as the sick, the prisoner—as the prisoner, the sufferer—as the sufferer, etc.}, you have done evil for both of you; you, giving him alms [and not receiving from him, because by receiving alms from the beggar, you give him the opportunity to discover the image of God within himself] in such coordinates, convince him that he is miserable and you yourself believe this, and both of you enter into even greater illusion, moving away from reality; the beggar is Christ, and you convince him with your senseless mercy of the opposite [instead of helping him see that he is Christ, you throw him into the abyss of despair and disbelief] and you yourself believe this even more—let him who has understanding understand what I am saying, but everyone do as much as understanding allows—det. in Part II.)
Only after I found Christ, or rather to say—He found me (when I truly sought truth—see for example Apostle Paul), can I lead others, carry them to Him, because I now know
the beaten path. This experience of Christ pours out from the heart in streams of Orthodox theology, which is called to point other hungry and thirsty for truth to the path to the Truth-Christ. (Rational, academic theology has a right to exist, if it is rooted in the patristic spirit, and has one goal—correct spiritual life as a way to acquire the Truth-Christ). God does not need our requests to know our needs. But the Church teaches its children to ask: for the accomplished, holy day; an angel of peace; forgiveness of sins; good passage and harvest of the earth; repentance and a Christian end…—thereby indicating the path, the map of spiritual life and at the end of all requests teaches us: “but not as I want, Lord, but as You want”—”Ourselves, one another and all our life unto Christ our God we commit!” And we individually are befitting to pray (we are talking now not about the form—the words of prayers, but about the setting of the spirit): “Merciful God, be merciful to me a sinner,” “God, cleanse me a sinner,” “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner…” And not: “have mercy on Ivan and Galina…”,
“help Paul…”, “heal the seriously ill Sergey…”… Want to help someone?! If you cannot bring, or lead (or bring the Church to them—a priest who embodies the parish and will introduce a person with the announcement and Holy Gifts into communion with Christ) him to the Church, to Christ, then like the centurion go to Christ to ask for the dear to you person and pour your feeble supplication, pleading into the Church Eucharistic prayer—that is, communicate with Christ, pray (allow Christ to pray in you, give Him your heart, through which by your faith and love He will enter the life of the one for whom you pray). Only in the Church, in the Holy Spirit we can pray for others: for the whole world—on the great litany, and for specific people and their needs, sorrow, problems—on the triple, fervent litany and other liturgical prayers (see the order of Liturgies of St. John and Basil). Only Churchly, in the Holy Spirit, prayer can one pray for someone (we are talking about
Prayer, not about mentioning names and formal reminders about someone or something), who is in the Church, a real member of a real Orthodox parish, who living Eucharistic Church life in Christ prays with Christ’s prayer for the whole world (see Jn. 17 chapter). And you yourself—lament your own misery (misfortune), repent of your sins (what it means—det. in Part II)—this is your real help to those you
“love” and the whole world!!! Save yourself and around you thousands will be saved!..
The discussion ended with a complete “rout” of “good” deeds and “prayers” of the “healer-prayerful-benefactor”—he admitted that he does not know Orthodox theology and is completely incompetent in the laws of correct spiritual life—that is, I do—I do not know what, and I go—I do not know where (the blind fool—no offense, no one offended anyone—the conclusions were made by the “miracle-worker” himself). Two days later we accidentally (I speak carnally) met again. We talked about something neutral and at the end of the conversation, which I all the time unobtrusively tried to turn back to the same plane (of the previous conversation), thinking that perhaps some misunderstandings, concerns, new arguments had arisen over the past two days (because when there is a spontaneous discussion, usually the best arguments appear after the discussion: and this, and this, and this… should have been said). I did not hurry the interlocutor, because
there were a lot of “homework,” which he had to think about, check the arguments, whether it really is as I said, in short, a lot of work, but I wanted to hear at least some position (when there was time to think calmly) on the previous discussion. From the interlocutor—only silence on the painful topic and avoidance of it, and I did not press, because I thought that he was not yet ready to talk about it. But when we