Ten days have already passed since I received your letter and before I was able to set about writing you back.
With regard to your doubts about the Easter Matins, I would like to tell you that all circumstances in which those who love the Lord may find themselves serve for their good. The Holy Fathers said that the Kingdom of God does not come through the observance of rules and rites. It might happen – and very often it does – that spiritual joys do not come when we expect them to come. Man with the right disposition of the soul feels himself unworthy of any spiritual comfort. Moreover, as St. John of the Ladder said, “Decline with a humble hand any upcoming jollity as one who does not deserve it, lest it should bring you into delusion and make you take the wolf for the shepherd.” Differently worded, this message is communicated by all Holy Fathers. All people are susceptible to sinfulness, especially to the so-called trivial sins, that are no less harmful for that, than serious ones. Nobody can foresee and overcome all of them by himself.
Only realization of one’s own iniquity, meagerness, sinfulness and insolvent indebtedness to God along with unceasing weeping because of that ( in other words , having a broken heart that becomes humbled that all men with whom God was pleased used to have) is the correct spiritual disposition to defend man against fall and to guide him forward to spiritual gifts and to protect these gifts, if man is blessed with them. A zealot with a tearless heart must be living in a spiritual delusion, having a false disposition of the soul; and if he does not improve, he can fall prey to devil’s deception and perish. In our time, such cases are not high-profile news; they are not noisy and widely known, but they do happen, nevertheless. A great many adherents to ascetic life give in to the temptation of delusion, be it a temporal occasion, happening from time to time, or a permanent state. It is a very subtle matter.
Success of spiritual life is not measured by spiritual solaces, which might come from the devil, but by the depth of humbleness.
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