1) If you want to live a spiritual life, you should look after yourself. Every evening look at the good and bad things you did that day. Thank God for the good, repent in the bad.

2) When someone is praising you but you know that you have disadvantages, then this praising must be like a stab in your heart and must foster your desire to improve yourself.

3) Less philosophizing, more doing. In our life, we already devote too much time to the former at the expense of the latter.

4) Be especially careful with your impure thoughts.

5) If you feel any tendency to sin, make two prostrations to the Mother of God with prayer: “O Holy Theotokos, by the prayers of my parents, save me, a sinner”. The spirit of your parents will unite with yours in your prayer.

6) One must read Holy Gospel carefully.

7) Since the Lord’s prayer is the shortened Gospel, one must prepare properly to reading it.

8) When you are fasting with your body, do not forget to fast with your spirit. Do not be insolent, especially with those who are older than you are. This fast will be much higher than the fast of the body.

9) Work on bringing up your younger brothers and sisters. Influence them with your own example. Remember that if you have any disadvantages, they can easily adopt them. The Lord will call you to account in this issue.

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The righteous Father Alexei Mechev was an archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow who, after the early death of his wife, became known as an elder in the world. The feast day of Righteous Priest Saint Alexei is June 9. Fr. Alexei died on June 22, 1923 in Vereia (west of the city centre of Moscow). In 1934, when his body was uncovered, it was found uncorrupted: a mark of sainthood. His relics were then laid in a new grave. 

His son Sergei, who became the priest in his father’s church of Saint Nicholas after him, was himself murdered in 1942. During the period of August 13 to 16, 2000 in Moscow, the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church gave approval or blessing for the glorification and canonization of the the Royal Martyrs of Russia, as Passion Bearers, and several hundred new martyrs and confessors. Among these Fr. Alexei was canonized into the ranks of the Saints by the Moscow Church, and his son, Sergei, was declared a New Martyr of the eparchy of Moscow.

Source: www.catalogueofstelisabethconvent.blogspot.com