Gregory Postnikov - How to Live a Holy Life

A D AY OF H OLY L IFE ,
O R THE A NSWER TO THE Q UESTION ,
H OW C AN I L IVE A H OLY L IFE?

Metropolitan Gregory (Postnikov)
1784-1860 of St. Petersburg

Original Russian printed in 1904

Seraphim F. Englehardt, translator
Translated from the 1994 Russian
edition by the publisher, Otchii Dom

Holy Trinity Publications
The Printshop of St Job of Pochaev
Holy Trinity Monastery
Jordanville, New York
2012

Printed with the blessing of His Eminence,
Metropolitan Hilarion First Hierarch
of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

How To Live A Holy Life
2005 Holy Trinity Monastery

Cover photo: Light shines out from the altar at Pascha,
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Jordanville, New York

Second Printing: Holy Trinity Publications, 2012

HOLY TRINITY PUBLICATIONS
The Printshop of St Job of Pochaev
Holy Trinity Monastery
Jordanville, New York 13361-0036
www.holytrinitypublications.com

ISBN: 978-0-88465-089-8 (Paperback)

All rights reserved.

D o you call yourself a Christian? Are you a Christian in actual fact? Do you live as a Christian should live, that is, do you fervently desire and earnestly seek after that which a true Christian desires and seeks after? The blessings that the Lord promises the true Christian in the future life are to be highly desired. And inexpressibly horrible is the misfortune into which sin plunges us, if we do not desire and do not seek what a Christian must desire most fervently and seek after most earnestly. What will happen if you do not receive the promised blessings and are cast into eternal torments? You have already lived a considerable time, but have you ever asked yourself these and similar questions? In particular, have you ever contemplated upon them seriously?

The Christian must be such as was Jesus Christ. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, said the holy Apostle Paul (Phil. 2:5). Are you the kind of person that Jesus Christ was? Do you behave as He did? Do you live by His teaching, or Gospel, that He gave us as a rule of life?

A Christian must not love the world (I John 2:15). But many are completely bound to the world, so that it seems like they live only for the world: they always think like the world, they behave like the world, and all the rules that they follow in their likes are precisely those rules that the world follows. Arent you such a person? Such a life is not a Christian one and is quite disastrous.

The Lord once said in the Old Testament through the holy prophet to His Chosen People: Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down (Isa. 5:3-5). Can not the Lord God with incomparably greater right in the New Testament tell us who are disobedient to Him, What could I do for you that I have not done? I redeemed you with My Blood, gave birth to you in the bosom of My church; enlightened you with the light of the true faith, gave you all the means and abilities for salvation, prepared eternal blessedness for you and constantly in every way disposed you to seek this blessedness. Did I not sufficiently show My love for you? Wretches! I became your Savior and try in every way to lead all of you into eternal blessedness, but you only endeavor in every way not to find yourself in eternal blessedness, but for Me to become your judge and give you up to eternal torments. I created you to be eternally with Me and to experience My joys, but you behave yourselves in such a way that I would abhor you and repudiate you. I am very merciful towards you, but you by your ingratitude and your self-will try only to enflame My anger toward you. Neither My mercy, which I constantly show you, nor eternal blessedness, to which I so often and so earnestly call you, nor the terrible torments of hell, with which I threaten you, rouse you onto the path of salvation. Would it not have been better for you if you had not been born and the light of faith had not shone on you? My friend, what if one day we shall have to hear such words from the Lord? Such words even now, when we have not yet heard them, tear at the heartstrings. What will it be like when we do hear them and when we have to reap what we have sown for ourselves by our sins? Have fear in your heart! Cease your customary way of life and begin to live according to the Lords teaching, which is written in His Holy Gospel, a God-pleasing, holy life.

So that you will be able to more quickly get started, I offer instructions for one day. If you faithfully follow these instructions, you will see that you will need no other instructions. You should pass every subsequent day just as you did the first one.

I n the morning, conduct yourself in the following manner:

1. Upon awakening, try first of all to direct your thoughts to the Lord God. Directing our thoughts to the Lord God should be our most natural activity at every other time of the day as well, because there is absolutely no one who could be so necessary for us, so dear and precious for us as God. For absolutely everything that we have now and that we have ever had, including even our very beingabsolutely everything is a gift of God. The person who is the most needed, the most precious, the dearest of all for us is the one who usually first comes to our minds in the morning. As soon as we wake up in the morning, the thought of whoever or whatever is the most needed and dear to us wakes up as well. This always happens in the natural course of things. Therefore, it is always natural for our thoughts to turn first of all to the Lord God with some heartfelt appeal, such as Glory to Thee, O Lord! Glory to Thee, O All-Merciful One! We would be unworthy of the name of Christian if, waking from sleep, we were to open only our physical eyes, and not our spiritual ones, and were to think first of the earth and of earthly things, and not of the Lord God.

2. If the time at which you woke is the time at which or near which you should get up, then without any delay say, In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, while making the sign of the cross. And then, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.