This collection of Fr. John's prayer-inspired thoughts compiles his last diary, written in 1907-1908. Entrusting the editorship of his diary, Fr. John named his new diary "The Living Ear." It is difficult to describe Batyushka's sincere joy about his new publication and his delight at the name of the diary he himself gave. This joy of a zealous worker in the field of God will find a distant similarity in the joy of a plowman hunched over by labor, who saw the promising fruit of his continuous labors. His work is a "living ear," because his seed is the "verbs of the belly of the eternal," the word of God; this is a "living ear," because every grain taken from this "ear" in faith will be the beginning of a new life in God. The pure joy of Father, prayer and tears of a 53-year-old worker over planting and watering the grains of God and comforted by the consciousness of the eternity of his labors, is understandable.