Sometimes, when I am standing in church, my soul is taken over by a feeling of God's presence. At such a moment I am surrounded not by icons, but by the saints themselves. Coming down to services, they fill the church, peering at me searchingly. It is useless to turn my eyes away from their faces, to hide in some dark corner of the church. The God-pleasers look not at my face, but at my heart. And where might I hide my heart? Thus do I stand in the rough shirt of my helplessness and unworthiness before their all-seeing eyes. My filthy thoughts, fearful of the saints' holy gaze, hide themselves away and cease to torment me. My heart, aflame with the fire of its own impurity, burns with the fire of compunction, my body as if freezes, and I begin to sense my own unrighteousness with my entire being, down to the tips of my fingers and toes.
+Hieromonk Vasily (Rosliakov), quoted in Thou Hast Proved Me, O God, and Knowest... The Life of Hieromonk Vasily
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