Quotes

 St Nektarios

St. John Chrysostom says: “Grace even as grace saves the willing.” St. Gregory the Theologian also says: “In being saved we must have both the action of God and the will of man.” The Apostolic Father Justin Martyr also explains that even though God alone created man, he does not save man without his consent.

Those who imagine that man can be saved by only the grace of God or only by the will of man himself, without the grace of God, are deceived, because the grace of God does not save except those who have repented and have returned to the Lord, the will of man, without the grace of God, is insufficient to bring salvation, because man alone is unable to justify himself before God.

The ability of the human will, as being capable and sufficient for salvation, was first taught by Pelagius at the beginning of the fifth century and the later Pelagians who followed him. The ability of divine grace, as the only power required to save man, was taught by two formal Fathers of the Western Church, Saints Augustine and Jerome, who opposed Pelagius and wanted to renounce the false teaching of Pelagius. However, the consciousness of the Church declared both of these views erroneous and, following the middle ground, proceeded to define doctrinally the following principle: “Salvation is accomplished both by the divine grace and the willing cooperation of man.”                                                                                                                        ***********************************************

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra

The spiritual life is … devotion to the Holy Spirit or, more correctly, the quest for the Holy Spirit. Through seeking comes the ‘capturing’ and the experience of the Holy Spirit…

It is, however, impossible to become familiarised with the Holy Spirit, and make it one’s very own ‘captive’, other than by choosing the path of purification.  First there will be purification, once our heart and mind are detached from every earthly thing, and then the Holy Spirit will come and abide within us.

Of course, you would recall the wonderful words of St Basil the Great: “Those who disregard earthly things and rise above them are found to be worthy of the gift of the Holy Spirit”.  If you do not trample upon earthly goods, if you do not prove yourself to be better than that, then you will never acquire the Holy Spirit. While the Holy Spirit will of course, like a gust of wind, blow all around you, and within you, yet it will not speak to you, nor show you the way or guide you.

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St Silouan the Athonite

To learn Christ-like humility is a great good. Only to the humble does the Lord reveal Himself in the Holy Spirit, but if we do not humble ourselves we shall not see God. Humility is the light in which we may behold the Light which is God, as the Psalmist sang: “In Thy light we shall see light”.

There is a wide difference between the simplest man who has come to know the Lord by the Holy Spirit and even a very great man ignorant of the Grace of the Holy Spirit.

There is a big distinction between merely believing that God exists, in seeing Him in nature or in the Scriptures, and knowing the Lord by the Holy Spirit.

The spirit of the man who has come to know God by the Holy Spirit burns day and night with love of God, and his soul can form no earthly attachment.

The soul that has not experienced the sweetness of the Holy Spirit rejoices in worldly vanity and praise, or in riches or power; but the Lord is the only desire of the soul that has come to know the Lord by the Holy Spirit, and riches and worldly fame count for nothing with her.

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Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnika

We have many examples by which we can learn. The Lord gave us first of all the Most Holy Theotokos.  It was His will that the Most Holy Theotokos remain with the holy Apostles to comfort and encourage them after His Resurrection and Ascension.  One of the God-bearing Fathers, a native of Athens, St. Dionysios the Areopagite, wished to see the Most Holy Mother of God.  When he arrived in Jerusalem, they took him to the home of St. John the Theologian, where the Most Holy Theotokos lived.  When he entered her chamber, he was at once free of all cares and worries and was overcome with ineffable joy and peace.  This is how he describes his meeting with the Most Holy Theotokos: “Had I not learned in my youth about the True God, for me the Most Holy Theotokos would have been God.”

See what peace, stillness, and joy radiate from the Most Holy Theotokos!  God has allowed peace and joy to radiate from every soul that is one with Him.  Divine peace and joy emanate from such a person, and we feel good in his presence.  Do you see what the Kingdom of Heaven means?  “The Kingdom of God is… righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17).

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St Paisios from Mount Athos

A Christian must not be a fanatic, but have love for everyone. Whoever hurls indiscreet words, even when he may be in the right, does harm.  I once met an author who was devout, and yet spoke to worldly people in a brutally frank way that was profound, and he would shake them.  Once he told me, “In a gathering I said this and that to a lady.”  But by the manner in which he made his remarks, he had crippled the poor woman.  He embarrassed her in front of everybody.  “Look,” I told him, “You are hurling golden crowns with diamonds at people, but the way you’re throwing them you are hurting heads, not just sensitive ones, but hard ones, too.”  Let us not throw stones at people … Christian-style.  Whoever censures publicly someone who has sinned, or whoever speaks with animosity about someone, such a person is not motivated by the Spirit of God, he is moved by another spirit.  The way of the Church is love, it differs from the way of the lawyers.  The Church sees everything with loving forbearance and seeks to help each person, no matter what he has done, or how sinful he may be.

I notice in some devout people a rather strange type of logic.  Their devotion and good intentions are all very well, but they also need to be spiritually discerning and broad-minded, so their devotion is not accompanied by narrow-mindedness or hard-headedness, that is a stubborn and closed mind.  The basis is to be in the right spiritual state, to have spiritual discernment, otherwise one remains at the level of the “letter of the law”, and the “letter of the law kills” (2 Cor. 3:6).  He who has humility never takes on the air of an instructor; he listens and when asked for his opinion, he speaks humbly.  He never says “I”, but rather “my thought tells me,” or “the Fathers tell us.”  He speaks like a student.  Anyone who thinks that he can correct others thinks far too highly of himself.

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Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnika

When a person has the Grace of God, his thoughts are unbelievably powerful, because it is the power of God Himself that acts in us. If we have turned away from God in our thoughts and hearts, then our thoughts can be terrible, even death-dealing, to our fellow men. If we are united with the Lord with a heart full of faith, the power of Grace works in us. But if we have not yet cleansed ourselves from pride and still feel offended and angered when others say unkind words to us, then the power of God in us is diminishing…

There are very few people who come to their senses, very few who understand life. We pray with our lips only, and we hurry through our prayers to “get it over with” as soon as possible, and then we lose peace. Fasting and prayer are a means of embellishing our soul and bringing it back to its original state.  We must strive with God’s help, to attain the traits of Christ the Savior. We know that He was meek, humble and good and we must try to imitate Him.  However, we have no strength to do this by ourselves therefore we must ask the Lord for help. It is impossible for the light bulb to give us light without electrical power, and it is impossible for us to live without God as He Himself said, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

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Archbishop Makarios

The period of Holy Lent specifically has this aim. It is a period of struggle, of sanctification, and a period of intense seeking after God.  Whatever we practice during this period: fasting, services, charitable works, prayer, confession, we experience these only as a means in our search for God. We are not trying to achieve something as if it is a human feat.  If we put the human in the centre, then our struggle is relative to something else and we do not allow God’s will to be done in our life.  Everything we practice is useful, only when interpreted as signs of our love towards Him. Otherwise these actions have no meaning and instead they become arduous and laborious tasks which do not have any spiritual value.  God is revealed to people through His love. And we realise and sense Him only through loving Him.   

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St Basil

A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.

It is not he who begins well who is perfect. It is he who ends well who is approved in God’s sight.

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St John of Kronstadt

To despond when reproached is most foolish, for by the help of God’s Grace the Christian can always change for the better if he wishes to do so; and it is for this purpose that the Lord sends us accusers, that we may open our spiritual eyes, and see the deformity of our deeds, and so correct ourselves; it is not that we may cast ourselves into despondency. Despondency is itself a sin, and the work of the Devil.  Reproof ought to produce in us the godly sorrow, which worketh repentance to salvation, and not the sorrow of self-love.

You are angry with your neighbour, and say of him that he has done this or that, and so on. What business of yours is it? He sins against God, not against you. God is his judge, not you, and to God he shall give an account of himself, not to you. Know how sinful you are yourself, how difficult it is for you to master your own sins; and to get the better of them, how afflicted you are by them, how they have ensnared you, how you wish indulgence from others. Your brother is a man like unto you; therefore you must be indulgent to him, as to a sinful man similar in all things to you, as infirm as you. Love him, then, as yourself: “These things I command you, that ye love one another”.                                                                      

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From the Book “Unseen Warfare”

a) As soon as you feel impulses of the lower, sensory and passionate will, you must immediately use every effort to resist them and not allow your own will to incline towards them, however slightly. Crush them, cut them off, drive them away from yourself by an intense effort of will.

(b) To achieve this more successfully and with a better result, hasten to kindle in yourself a wholehearted aversion to such impulses, as to your enemies, who seek to steal and destroy your soul—be angered with them.

(c) At the same time do not forget to appeal to our Lord Jesus Christ, our Helper in all endeavour, asking for His assistance and protection, and for the strengthening of your better will; for without Him we can succeed in nothing.

(d) If, these three inner actions are sincerely practised in your soul, they will never fail to give you victory over evil impulses. But this would mean only driving the enemies away. If you wish to strike at their very heart, then, if it is feasible, at once do something opposed to the suggestion of the passionate impulse.

I shall illustrate this by an example. Supposing someone has offended you in something whether great or small, and has aroused in you a movement of displeasure and irritation, accompanied by a suggestion of retaliation. Pay attention to yourself and hasten to realise that these movements are bent on enticing you towards evil. Therefore take up the attitude of a warrior on the defensive:

(a)                     Stop these movements, do not let them penetrate any deeper and on no account allow your will to take their part as though they were right. This will mean resisting them.

(b)                    But they still remain in sight, ready for a renewed attack. So rouse aversion against them, as against your enemies, and be angry with them for self-protection

(c)                     Call to the Lord: ‘Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord’ (Ps. 70: 1). And do not cease calling thus, until not a trace of the hostile movements remains and peace is restored in your soul.

(d)                    Having thus regained peace, do to your offender something which would show your kind and conciliatory disposition towards him, such as a friendly word, some timely favour, and so on. This would mean following the advice of David: ‘Depart from evil, and do good’ (Ps. 34: 14).

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Elder Ephraim of Arizona

My child, I pray that the God of patience and consolation will strengthen you in your illness, which you have fallen into by the will of God.  When I heard that you were seriously ill, I felt much pain for you and begged our Panagia to make you well, first in soul and then in body.

My child, think of the holy martyrs how much they endured for the love of our Christ! Therefore, you should also say to yourself, “Lowly one, patiently endure the torments of illness so that you may avoid the eternal torments of hell!”  Those martyrs voluntarily submitted to the tortures of martyrdom, whereas you are in pain involuntarily.  But even this is good; it will benefit you significantly- just bear the chastisement of the Lord with joy and thankfulness.

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St Paisios from Mount Athos

– Geronda, what is divine consolation?

– What is divine consolation?  I’ll give you an example so you’ll understand it better.  A young child does something wrong; let’s say he breaks one of his father’s tools and then is upset over it and cries because he considers it to be a big mistake.  The more the child cries and admits the damage done and continues to suffer over it, the more the father caresses his child and tries to console it. “It’s all right, my child, don’t cry, don’t worry, it’s not so serious; we’ll buy another tool.” But the child, seeing the love and kindness of his father, out of philotimo, only cries all the more. “I can’t help it, father, we need the tool now, and I just broke it,” he continues.  And the father continues to console his son: “Don’t worry my child, it’s nothing, it was an old tool.”  But the child is still troubled over what happened. And as the child continues to be troubled, the father also continues to hug his son and kiss him and caress him.  In a similar manner, the more we suffer and grieve over our sinfulness or over our ingratitude to God, and out of philotimo cry for having grieved our Father with our sins, the more He will reward us with divine gladness and inner sweetness.  Such grief is good grief, because, while it may contain pain, it also has hope and consolation.

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St John of Kronstadt

He who is accustomed to give account of his life at Confession will not fear to give an answer at the terrible judgment-seat of Christ. For this purpose was the mild tribunal of Penitence here instituted, that we may give an answer without shame, having been cleansed and healed through Penitence here below. This is the first motive for sincere confession.

A second motive is inner calm. The more sincerely we confess our sins, the more calm will the soul be afterwards. For sins are secret serpents, gnawing at the heart of a man, and never letting him rest; they are prickly thorns, constantly goring the soul, they are spiritual darkness.

Bear the sufferings of the operation so that you may be restored to health- I speak of Confession. I mean that at Confession you must declare all your shameful deeds to your Confessor, without concealment, though it may well be painful, shameful, ignominious and humiliating. Otherwise the wound will remain unhealed, will continue to pain you, will undermine your spiritual health, and remain as a leaven for other spiritual weaknesses, or sinful habits or vices.   

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Peope say that if you do not feel inclined to pray it is better not to pray; but this is crafty carnal sophistry. If you pray only when you are inclined to, you will cease praying altogether; this is what the flesh desires. “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence”. You will not be able to work out your salvation without forcing yourself…

Are you in a hurry to get to your place of service or work?  Get up earlier; do not sleep so long; and pray fervently- you will get calm, energy and success for your whole day’s work.  You want to finish your rule of prayer quickly, in order to rest your weary body?  Pray fervently, and you will enjoy peaceful, calm and healthy sleep.  Do not hurry, then; nor say your prayers anyhow- by half an hour’s prayer you will gain 3 whole hours of the soundest sleep…

He who prays in a hurry, without whole-hearted understanding and feeling, being conquered by his slothful, sleepy flesh, serves not God, but his own flesh, his own self-love, and reviles God by his inattention and the indifference of his heart to prayer: God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth- not hypocritically. However slothful and weak your flesh may be, however inclined to sleep you may be, conquer yourself; do not spare yourself, for God; renounce yourself; let your gift to God be perfect; give God your heart. 

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The best moments on earth are those in which we meditate upon heavenly things, or when we recognise and defend the truth, which is of, and from, the heavens. Only then do we truly live. It is therefore vital to the soul that we should more often rise above the earth, and mount to heaven, where alone is our true life, our true country which shall have no end…

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 One of the most powerful wiles of the Devil is to weaken the heart through sloth, and with it to weaken all the spiritual and bodily powers.  At such times faith, hope and love are died up in the heart; we become faithless, despondent, unfeeling to God and man; the salt has lost its flavour…

 Do not work only when you wish to, but work also- indeed, above all- when you do not wish to.  Do the same in every ordinary worldly matter, and even more so with regard to the work of saving your soul- prayer, reading the word of God and other salutary books, attending divine service, undertaking good works, whatever they may be, preaching God’s word.  Do not obey the slothful, lying  and most sinful flesh; it is ever ready to rest, and to lead us to eternal death  through temporal peace and enjoyment.

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 St. Gregory of Nazianzus

This is our present Festival; it is this which we are celebrating today, the Coming of God to Man, that we might go forth, or rather (for this is the more proper expression) that we might go back to God – that putting off of the old man, we might put on the new; and that as we died in Adam, so we might live in Christ, being born with Christ and crucified with Him and buried with Him and rising with Him.

For I must undergo the beautiful conversion, and as the painful succeeded the more blissful, so must the more blissful come out of the painful. For where sin abounded grace did much more abound; and if a taste condemned us, how much more does the passion of Christ justify us?

Therefore let us keep the Feast, not after the manner of a heathen festival, but after a godly sort; not after the way of the world, but in a fashion above the world; not as our own, but as belonging to Him who is ours, or rather as our master’s; not as of weakness, but as of healing; not as of creation, but of re-creation.                                                                                                                                  

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St John of Kronstadt

The Divine Liturgy is truly a heavenly service on earth, in which God Himself, in a particular, immediate and most close manner is present and dwells with men, for He Himself is the invisible celebrant of the service; He is both the offerer and the offering. There is on earth nothing higher, greater, more holy, than the Liturgy; nothing more solemn, nothing more life-giving…

How we cling to earthly things! We do not wish to devote even one hour exclusively to God. Even during the Divine Liturgy we allow ourselves to think and dream of earthly things and fill our souls with images and desires of earthly things, sometimes, alas, even with impure images—when we ought to be praying ardently, to be meditating assiduously upon this great mystery, to be repenting of our sins, longing and praying to be cleansed, hallowed, enlightened, renewed and strengthened in the Christian life, and in the fulfilment of Christ’s commandments, when we ought to be praying for the living and the dead, for the Liturgy is a sacrifice of thanksgiving and propitiation, of praise and prayer.

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St Ignatius Brianchaninov

The cross is heavy only as long as it remains “my cross”.  When it becomes the Cross of Christ, it suddenly becomes very light-“for My yoke is easy, and My burden is light,” said the Lord. The cross is lifted to the shoulders by the disciple of Christ when he acknowledges himself worthy of the sorrows allowed by God’s providence.  The disciple of Christ carries his cross correctly when he admits that exactly those sorrows which were sent to him, and not any others, are necessary for his formation in Christ and his salvation.  Patient bearing of “my cross” is true recognition of one’s sins, in this knowledge, there is no self-deception. However, he who admits himself to be a sinner but at the same time complains and groans from his cross, only proves that he is lying to himself with his superficial admission of sinfulness.

Patiently bearing the cross is true repentance…  Praise God from your cross, cutting off all thoughts of self-pity and murmuring, since they are no less than blasphemy…  Thank God from the cross, thank Him for the priceless treasure of your own cross, for the precious gift to be able to emulate Christ’s sufferings.  Praise God from your cross, because the cross is the only true instructor, guardian, and throne of theology. Outside the cross, there can be no living knowledge of God.  Do not search for Christian perfection in human virtues. There you will not find it, because it is hidden in the Cross of Christ.

My cross becomes the Cross of Christ when I, a disciple of Christ, carry it with an active knowledge of my own sinfulness, admitting I am worthy of death; and when I carry it with gratitude to Christ, with praise for Christ. From praise and thanksgiving, spiritual consolation appears in the sufferer; praise and thanksgiving become an endless source of unutterable, undying joy that fills the heart, overflows into the soul, and even onto the body itself.

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St John of Kronstadt

When praying, a man must lay aside every worldly care, and care only for the salvation of his soul.  Is your heart impatient to go to vain, worldly matters? Master it; let its treasure be not earthly vanity, but God; teach it to attach itself through prayer to God, and not to worldly vanity…

When you are saying your prayers—and especially if you have a rule of prayer according to a book, do not hurry from one word to another without feeling its truth, without laying it to your heart; always strive to feel with your heart the truth of that which you say. Your heart will oppose this- sometimes by slothfulness and stony insensibility, sometimes by doubt and unbelief, sometimes by distraction and deviation of the mind to earthly objects and cares, sometimes by the remembrance of the offences of your neighbour, and by a feeling of revenge and hatred towards him, sometimes by the representation of worldly pleasures. Do not spare yourself; conquer your heart, and offer it to God as an acceptable sacrifice: “My son, give me Mine heart”. Your prayer will unite you to God and all heaven, and you will be filled with the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit- righteousness, peace, joy, love, meekness, long-suffering, and wholehearted repentance.

The heart that has fondness for food and drink, that is greedy for these, and is weakened by them, has no trust in prayer; nor has the heart in which hatred and animosity are concealed, nor that which is bound by avarice, covetousness and envy, until it puts these things away and amends itself.

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St Paisios from Mount Athos

– Geronda, I am in need of much humility.

– You must go and buy some. There are many people who give out humility for free, as long as you want it.

– Who are these people, Geronda?

– They are the ones who, when they are not in a good spiritual state, behave indiscreetly and humiliate us with their bad behaviour…  God will allow for some indiscreet person to behave badly toward us, or He will remove His Grace from another who will curse us. This is how we are tested and how we work towards acquiring humility. But often, we do not realise that it is for our benefit that God allows our brother or sister to act badly toward us, and so we become angry with them. And although we ask God for humility, we do not accept the opportunities He sends our way to become humble, and we fret and fume. Actually we should be grateful to the one who humiliates us, for he is our great benefactor. Whoever prays for humility from God but does not accept the person God has sent to humble him, does not know what he is asking for…  When you see someone you know behaving badly and speaking improperly to you, you should know that most of the time it is caused by the prayer you say. In other words, because you are asking God to give you humility, love and so forth, God removes His Grace for a little while from that person, and that person humbles and distresses you. This is how you are given the opportunity to be tested in humility, in love. If indeed you are humbled, you will benefit.

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St Ignatius Brianchaninov

Do you want to see the Lord Jesus Christ?  “Come and see,” says His Apostle (John 1:46). 

The Lord Jesus Christ promised to be with His disciples “to the end of the age.”  He is with them in the holy Gospels and the Mysteries of the Church.  He is not with those who do not believe in the Gospel- they do not see Him, blinded by lack of faith.

Do you want to hear Christ?  He speaks to you through His Gospel.  Do not ignore His saving voice.  Turn away from your sinful life and be attentive to the teaching of Christ, which is eternal life.

Do you want Christ to appear to you?  He tells you how to receive this vision. “He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.  And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (John 14:21)

With repentance, restore the purity and renewal given you in holy Baptism, and feed your union with God through a life according to the Gospels and with frequent communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.  “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.  He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”  (John 15:4,10; 6:56)…

My sincere friend in the Lord!  Go to the Lord Jesus Christ, come near Him on the path of the commandments of the Gospel; know Him through them; show and prove your love for Him by keeping them.  He will reveal Himself to you in a day and hour known to Him alone.  Together with this revelation, He will pour into your heart unutterable love for Himself.  Divine love is not something that belongs by nature to fallen man- it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, sent by God alone to his vessels purified by repentance, to his vessels of humility and chastity.                   

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Elder Ephraim of Arizona

Our Church helps us tremendously with the purification of our soul’s garment, which we are called to achieve. For this reason, during these holy days, during this time of the year that has opened up for us again—through general fasting, by abstaining not only from food, but mainly from evil desires—every Christian who longs for salvation must collect his thoughts and decisively struggle to live more modestly, moderately, and plainly. He must cease trying to look attractive externally and turn toward his internal embellishment. The external vessel will be destroyed; it will disintegrate; it will decay and become food for the worms. However, nothing can ruin the beauty of the soul; on the contrary, the Spirit of God remodels it to a more noble state… 

The bridal chamber has been opened. Christ is patiently waiting for us; we must not delay. We have now entered the arena of fasting and purification, and the bath of repentance is awaiting us. Let us use our time wisely now that all things are conducive to repentance. The words of our Church are replete with contrition, as long as we carefully pay attention to their meaning. Let us kneel every day and night, and let us beseech God to grant us a contrite spirit and tears.                      

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St Ignatius Brianchaninov

God looks into the heart. He sees our most hidden, subtlest thoughts and feelings. He sees our entire past and our entire future. God is all-knowing. And thus, stand during your prayer as if you stood before God Himself. Indeed, you do stand before Him! You stand before your Judge and all-powerful Lord, on Whom your temporal and eternal fate depends. Use this time before Him to ensure your future blessedness; do not let this audience with the King become a reason for your temporal and eternal suffering. 

Having determined to bring your prayer before God, reject all thoughts and worries of this life. Do not pay any attention to thoughts that come to you during prayer, no matter how important, brilliant, or necessary they may seem to be. Give to God the things that are God’s, while the things necessary for the temporal life can be done in their own time. it is impossible to simultaneously work for God in prayer and clutter the mind with wayward thoughts and cares.

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St Ignatius Brianchaninov

The essence of any striving toward the Lord is attentiveness. Without attentiveness, all our labours become fruitless, dead. He who desires to be saved must strive to maintain attentiveness to himself, not only in solitude but in the midst of distraction, into which circumstances sometimes hurl him against his will. May the fear of God outweigh all other feelings in the scales of his heart- then it will be easy to preserve attentiveness to oneself, both in the silence of the cell and in the midst of the surrounding noise of the world.

Temperance in eating, which lessens the fire in the blood, greatly aids watchfulness over oneself; while the warming of the blood that occurs either from overeating, from excessive physical movement, from the inflammation of anger, from intoxicating vanity, or from other reasons, gives birth to a multitude of thoughts and images, in other words, scattered thoughts. The Holy Fathers recommend that he who desires to be watchful over himself must first control his appetite temperately, steadily, and constantly to abstain from excessive eating.

When you awake, it is an image of the universal awakening of all people from the dead. Direct your thoughts to God, bring to God a sacrifice of the first thoughts of your mind before it has had an opportunity to accept any worldly impressions. In silence, with extreme care, fulfil any of your bodily needs after rising, then read the usual prayer rule, paying attention not so much to the number of prayers as to the quality of the prayer; that is, take care that your prayer is done attentively, and as a result of this attentiveness, may your heart be blessed and enlivened by prayerful compunction and consolation. After your prayer rule, once again taking great pains to remain attentive, read the New Testament, especially the Gospels. During this reading, carefully notice all the commandments of Christ, so that you can direct your actions (both inner and external) according to them…

Having been enlightened through prayer and reading by the Sun of Truth, our Lord Jesus Christ, you may begin your daily work, keeping watch over yourself, that in all deeds and words, in your entire being, may the all-holy will of God (as revealed and explained to man in the commandments of the Gospel) rule and act in you…

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St Ignatius Brianchaninov

If you are busy with various responsibilities, or if you are a monk burdened with many obediences that do not allow you to dedicate as much time to prayer as you would like, do not be downcast.  If your work is done properly and with a good conscience, it will prepare you for deep prayer and will replace quantity of prayer with quality.  Nothing prepares a person for successful prayer as much as a clean conscience satisfied with God-pleasing work.

The fulfilment of the commandments of the Gospel also concentrates the mind and heart in pure prayer, full of compunction; and in its turn, true prayer helps the person think, feel, and act according to the commandments of the Gospel.

Compassion for your neighbours and humility before them, expressed through external deeds, fostered in the heart and together with purity of heart, especially from carnal thoughts and feelings-  these are the foundation and power of prayer.  They are like prayer’s wings, with which it flies to heaven.  Without them, prayer cannot lift off from the earth, that is, free itself from the carnal mind-set- it is tied down as if in a snare, it becomes agitated, impure, and is finally destroyed.

The soul of prayer is attention.  Just as the body is dead without the soul, prayer is dead without attention.  Without attention, the prayer uttered by the lips is no more than empty words, and he who prays thus is included among those who take the Lord’s name in vain.

Pronounce the words of prayer slowly; do not allow your mind to wander aimlessly, but firmly keep it fixed on the words of the prayer.  This path is narrow and full of sorrows for the mind long accustomed to wander freely all over the universe, but this path leads to attentive prayer.  Whoever tastes of the great good of such attentive prayer will come to love forcing his mind to this narrow path that leads to blessed attentiveness.

Attentiveness is the first gift of divine grace sent to the one who patiently labours in prayerful ascesis.

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St Theophan the Recluse

First of all, go after the body. Refuse it delights and pleasures, restrict indulgences in even the most natural needs; lengthen the hour of vigil, decrease the usual amount of food, add labour to labour. Mainly, in whatever way you want or are able, lighten the flesh, thin its corpulence. Through this the soul will free itself of the bonds of matter, will become more energetic, lighter, and more receptive to good impressions. The material body prevailing over the soul communicates to the soul the body’s lethargy and coldness. Physical ascetic labours weaken these bonds and eliminate their effects. True, not every sinner lives unrestrainedly and indulges the body. But it would be hard to find an individual in normal life who does not have something he would do well to refuse the body once the desire for salvation touches his heart. And the goal is very significant- it completely changes one’s activity. What you have done previously according to habit, or in support of your usual occupations, you now begin to do with some changes and additional austerity for the sake of salvation- and there will be tangible results.

The body burdens the soul from the outside; cares and scattered thoughts wear it down from within. Let us suppose that the flesh is already humbled- this, the first step, was taken. But two barriers divide the soul from its own self.

Cares do not leave any time to work on oneself. When they are present, you have one matter on your hands and ten more in your head. That is why they push a person always further onward, not giving him the opportunity to look back and see himself. Therefore, you must put aside cares for a time, all without exception. You will take up your usual affairs later on, but for now let them cease, fling them from your hands and throw them out of your thoughts.

But once the cares have ceased, the whirlwind still remains in the head- one thought after another, one in agreement, another diametrically opposed. The soul is scattered, and the mind swings in different directions and thus does not allow you to retain anything lasting and steadfast. Collect your scattered children into one, like a pastor gathers his flock, or like a glass gathers scattered rays, and turn them back on yourself.

The desire to go deeper within yourself and work on yourself, to cut off your scattered thoughts and cares, of course inevitably requires solitude… In this light, the most convenient time to change your life should be considered to be during a fast, especially Great Lent…  During this time everything is looked upon as preparation for repentance. Just the same, this does not mean that when the beneficial thought has come to change your life, you should put off its fulfilment until the Fast begins. Everything required during this time can be fulfilled at any other time, other than the fasting. But when the holy Fast has arrived it is a sin to miss the chance to take care for the salvation of your soul, as it is often missed at another time.

Ezekiel  Chapter 36

²⁴ “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. ²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. ²⁸ Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

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From the Book Unseen Warfare by St Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

The mind should be freed and guarded from ignorance, which is most harmful, for it darkens the mind and prevents it from knowing the truth, which is its proper object and the aim of its aspirations. For this reason it should be exercised, to make it clear and lucid, able to discern correctly that we need to purify our soul from passions and to adorn it with virtues.

There are two means by which we can acquire such clarity of mind: the first and most necessary is prayer, by which we must implore the Holy Spirit to pour His divine light into our hearts. This He will surely do, if we truly seek God alone and sincerely strive to obey His will in everything, willingly submitting in all affairs to the advice of our experienced spiritual fathers and doing nothing without asking them.

The second method of exercising the mind is always to examine things and probe deep for knowledge of them, in order to see clearly which of them are good and which bad. We should judge them not as the world and the senses do, but as they are judged by right season and the Holy Spirit, or by the word of the divinely-inspired Scriptures, or that of the holy fathers and teachers of the Church. For if this examination and deepening of knowledge is right and proper, it will quite certainly enable us to understand clearly what we must with all our heart regard as valueless, vain and false, all what the blind and depraved world loves and seeks.

In particular, we shall then see that the honours, pleasures, and riches of this world are nothing but vanity and death to the soul; that the slander and abuse, with which the world persecutes us, bring us true glory, and its afflictions—joy; that to forgive our enemies and to do good to them is true magnanimity—one of the greatest traits of likeness to God; that a man who scorns the world shows greater strength and power than a man who rules over the whole world; that willing obedience is an action, which shows more courage and strength of spirit than subjugating great kings and ruling over them; that humble self-knowledge should be preferred to all other kinds of knowledge, however high; that to overcome and kill one’s own evil tendencies and lusts, however insignificant, is more worthy of praise than the capture of many fortresses, or the defeat of powerful and well-equipped armies, more even than the power to perform miracles and to raise the dead.

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St Gregory Palamas

In this time of fasting and prayer, brethren, let us with all our hearts forgive anything real or imaginary we have against anyone. May we all devote ourselves to love, and let us consider one another as an incentive to love and good works, speaking in defence of one another, having good thoughts and dispositions within us before God and men. In this way our fasting will be laudable and blameless, and our requests to God while we fast will be readily received. We shall rightly call upon Him as our Father by grace and we can boldly say to Him, “Father, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matt. 6:12).

Again, he who schemes against our souls uses another means to render our prayer and fasting useless, self-conceit. Because that Pharisee was conceited when he fasted and prayed, he was sent away empty-handed (Luke 18:10-14). We know, however, that people with proud hearts are unclean and unacceptable to God, and we are well aware that we owe God many large debts and pay back very little. So let us forget those things which are behind as worthless, and reach out towards those things which lie ahead (cf Phil. 3:13).  Let us fast and pray with contrite hearts, self-reproach and humility, that our fasting and our regular attendance and presence in God’s Church may be pure and pleasing to Him.

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St. Isaac the Syrian never downplays the difficulty of the Christian life. It is a fight and a struggle. As Jesus told his disciples, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matt. 11:12).  But while the Christian life may be difficult, St. Isaac offers encouragement by reminding us that God lives within us and He is not difficult to find.

“It is not necessary to roam heaven and earth after God or to send our mind to seek Him in different places. Purify your soul, O son of man, remove from yourself the thought of memories outside of nature; hang the veil of chastity and humility before your impulses. By means of these you will be able to find Him who is within you”.

Since God lives within each baptized Christian, St. Isaac encourages us to do away with all that hinders our sight of Him.

While the struggle for purity is difficult, St. Isaac has given us instruction on how to fulfil our goal. Above all, he encourages us to seek our Lord and to be single-minded: “Thirst for Jesus, that He may intoxicate you with His love.  Close your eyes to the precious things of the world that you may deserve to have the peace of God reign in your heart.”

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How to Come to Know God

If a person wants to get an idea about the pyramids of Egypt, he must either trust those who have been in immediate proximity to the pyramids, or he must get next to them himself. There is no third option. In the same way a person can get an impression of God: He must either trust those who have stood and stand in immediate proximity to God, or he must take pains to come into such proximity himself.
^{(St. Nicholas of Serbia)}

As it is impossible to verbally describe the sweetness of honey to one who has never tasted honey, so the goodness of God cannot be clearly communicated by way of teaching if we ourselves are not able to penetrate into the goodness of the Lord by our own experience.
^{(St. Basil the Great)}

Many rich and powerful men would pay dearly to see the Lord or His Most Pure Mother, but God does not appear in riches, but in the humble heart… Every one of the poorest men can be humble and come to know God. One needs neither money nor reputation to come to know God, but only humility.
^{(St. Silouan the Athonite)}

No matter how much we may study, it is not possible to come to know God unless we live according to His commandments, for God is not know by science, but by the Holy Spirit. Many philosophers and learned men came to the belief that God exists, but they did not know God. It is one thing to belief that God exists and another to know Him. If someone has come to know God by the Holy Spirit, his soul will burn with love for God day and night, and his soul cannot be bound to any earthly thing.
^{(St. Silouan the Athonite)}

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From the Book Unseen Warfare

You are sure to have heard these expressions: prayer with words, prayer with the mind, prayer with the heart, and maybe you have heard explanations of each of them separately. What is the reason for this division of prayer into its component parts? The reason is that owing to our negligence it sometimes happens that the tongue says the holy words of prayer, while the mind wanders away somewhere; or the mind understands the words of prayer, but the heart does not respond to them with feeling. In the first case prayer is merely words, and is not prayer at all; in the second—prayer with words is connected with mental prayer, and this is imperfect, incomplete prayer. Full and real prayer is when praying words and praying thoughts are combined with praying feelings.

There also exists, through the grace of God, prayer of the heart only, and this is spiritual prayer, which the Holy Spirit moves in the heart: the man who prays is conscious of it, but does not do it; it acts by itself. This prayer belongs to the perfect. The form of prayer accessible to all and demanded of all is the form where mind and feeling are always combined with the words of prayer.

There is yet another form of prayer, which is called standing in the presence of God, when the man who prays is wholly concentrated in his heart and inwardly contemplates God as being present to him and within him, with corresponding feelings—either of fear of God and the feeling of wonder and awe before His greatness, or of faith and hope, or of love and submission to His will, or of contrition and readiness for any sacrifice. Such a state comes when a man becomes deeply immersed in prayer by word, mind and heart. If a man prays in the right way and for a long time, these states come to him more and more often, and finally this state can become permanent; then it is called walking before God and is constant prayer. This was the state of David, who says of himself: “I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right band, I shall not be moved” (Ps. 16: 8).

Thus, my brother, if you wish your prayer to bring much fruit, never be content by oral prayer alone, but pray also with your mind and heart—using your mind to understand and be conscious of all that is said in words, and your heart to feel it all. Above all, pray with your heart. Prayer bursting from the heart is like a streak of lightning, which takes but a moment to cross the heavens and appear before the throne of the all-merciful God. God hears it and inclines towards this most of all. This was the prayer with which Moses prayed standing before the Red Sea; and immedi­ately he heard God’s voice: “Wherefore criest thou unto me?” (Ex. xiv. 15): and God gave him the power to free his people from τhe danger which threatened them.

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Excerpts from a talk by Fr Asterios Hatzinikolaou on Covid-19:

1. We need to appreciate more deeply what we had for years now, what we have always had without any hindrance, that which we perhaps took for granted
2. We should be grateful to God for the fact that for so many decades we have had access to worship
3. We all need to start to consider our unworthiness, our sinfulness. Why are we now deprived of worship?   Were we worthy of all we had? We all need to humbly accept our sinfulness. We do not approach [for worship] due to our worthiness, but due to God’s condescension. Let us come to understand this now that we are deprived of it.
4. Let us pray that God “shortens” the time of our ordeal. Let us pray a lot, as our spiritual fathers and bishops have been repeatedly suggesting to us to do.
5. When one day our Churches get back to normal and we then have the ability to participate again in the Sacrament of life, let us participate then a lot better than we used to. With a deeper sense of how small and poor we are, with more fervour, with love for God, grateful for what we are offered despite our unworthiness, and with a better appreciation of the gift.

The following excerpts from the very spiritual book “Unseen Warfare” are pertinent:

Communion with the Lord through the Sacrament of the Flesh and Blood is possible only at definite times, according to one’s possibilities and zeal, but never more than once a day. But inner communion with the Lord, in the spirit, is possible every hour and every minute, that is, through His Grace…..

There are works which open the way to this communion with the Lord and help obtain it, although it always seems to come unexpectedly. These are pure prayer, with child-like crying of the heart, and special acts of self-denial in the practice of the virtues.

Also pure and diligent fulfilment of all of God’s commandments bears fruit in the abiding of the Lord in the heart, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit:

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him”. (John 14:23)

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Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou   (From the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex, UK)  on COVID-19

This virus may be a means that God uses in order to bring many to themselves and to repentance, and to harvest many ready souls for His eternal Kingdom. Therefore, for those who surrender and entrust themselves to the Providence of God all will contribute for their good: ‘All things work together for good to them that love God’ (Rom. 8:28).

Thus, there is no room for morbid dismay. Neither should we resist the measures that the government is taking in order to diminish the spreading of the afflictions we see in the lives of so many people. It is wrong to go against the authorities. We should do whatever the Government says, because they are not asking for us to deny our faith, they are only asking us to take a few measures for the common wellfare of all people, so that this trial may pass, and this is not at all unreasonable. Some people take it too confessionally, they raise flags and play the martyrs and the confessors. For us there is no doubt: we shall show pure submission to the orders of the Government. It is unfair to disobey the Government since, when we fall ill, it is to their hospitals that we run and they are the ones who undertake all the expenses and our care. Why not listen to them?

This is the ethos of Christ that God showed in His life on earth and this is the apostolic commandment that we have received: ‘…be subject to principalities and powers, obey magistrates, be ready to every good work, speak evil of no man, be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men’ (cf. Tit. 3: 1-2); and ‘Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme…’ (see 1 Pet. 2:13-17). If we do not obey our governors who are not asking much, how will we obey God, Who gives us a divine law, which is far more sublime than any human law? If we keep the law of God we are above human laws, as the apologists of the 2nd century said during the Roman Empire which was persecuting the Christians. It is surprising to see in the country where we live, in the United Kingdom, that the footballers show such understanding and discernment so as to be the first to withdraw from their activities with docility towards the indications of the Government to take prophylactic measures. It would be sad for us, people of faith, to fail reaching the measure of the footballers and showing the same docility towards the authorities for which our Church prays.

If they ask us to stop our Church services, let us simply surrender and bless the Providence of God. Besides, this reminds us of an old tradition that the Fathers had in Palestine: in Great Lent, on the Sunday of Cheese fare, after the mutual forgiveness, they would go out in the desert for forty days without Liturgy; they would only continue in fasting and prayer so as to prepare and return on Palm Sunday to celebrate in a godly way the Passion and the Resurrection of the Lord. And so, our present circumstances force us to live again that which existed of old in the bosom of the Church. That is to say, they force us to live a more hesychastic life, with more prayer, which will however make up for the lack of the Divine Liturgy and will prepare us to celebrate with greater desire and inspiration the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Thus, we will turn this plague into a triumph of hesychasm. In any case, whatever God allows in our life is out of His goodness for the well-being of man, for He never wants His creature to be harmed in any way.

Certainly, if we will be deprived of the Divine Liturgy for a longer period of time, we can endure it. What do we receive in the Liturgy? We partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, which are filled with His grace. This is a great honour and benefit for us, but we also receive the grace of God in many other ways. When we practice hesychastic prayer, we abide in the Presence of God with the mind in the heart calling upon the holy Name of Christ. The Divine Name brings us the grace of Christ because it is inseparable from His Person and leads us into His Presence. This Presence of Christ which is purifying, cleanses us from our transgressions and sins, it renews and illumines our heart so that the image of God our Saviour, Christ, may be formed therein.

If we shall not have Easter in the Church, let us remember that every contact with Christ is Easter. We receive grace in the Divine Liturgy because the Lord Jesus is present in it, He performs the sacrament and He is the One imparted to the faithful. However, when we invoke His Name, we enter the same Presence of Christ and receive the same grace. Therefore, if we are deprived of the Liturgy, we always have His Name, we are not deprived of the Lord. Moreover, we also have His word, especially His Gospel. If His word dwells continually in our heart, if we study it and pray it, if it becomes our language with which we speak to God as He spoke to us, then we shall have again the grace of the Lord. For His words are words of eternal life (John 6:68), and the same mystery is performed, we receive His grace and are sanctified.

Furthermore, each time we show kindness to our brethren the Lord is well-pleased, He considers that we did it in His Name and He rewards us. We show kindness to our brethren and the Lord rewards us with His grace. This is another way in which we can live in the Presence of the Lord. We can have the grace of the Lord through fasting, alms giving and every good deed. So, if we are forced to avoid gathering in Church, we can also be united in spirit in these holy virtues which are known within the Body of Christ, the holy Church, and which preserve the unity of the faithful with Christ and with the other members of His Body. All the things we do for God is a Liturgy, for they minister unto our salvation. The Liturgy is the great event of the life of the Church, wherein the faithful have the possibility to exchange their little life with the boundless life of God. However, the power of this event depends on the preparation we perform before, through all the things we have mentioned, through prayer, good deeds, fasting, love for neighbour, repentance.

Therefore, my dear brethren, it is not necessary to make heroic confessions against the Government for the prophylactic measures that it takes for the good of all people. Neither should we despair, but only wisely machinate ways so as not to lose our living communication with the Person of Christ. Nothing can harm us, we must simply be patient for a certain period of time and God will see our patience, take away every obstacle, every temptation and we shall again see the dawn of joyful days, and we shall celebrate our common hope and love that we have in Christ Jesus.

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Fr Alexander Schmemann

For many, if not for the majority of Orthodox Christians, Lent consists of a limited number of formal, predominantly negative, rules and prescriptions: abstention from certain food, dancing, perhaps movies. Such is the degree of our alienation from the real spirit of the Church that it is almost impossible for us to understand that there is “something else” in Lent – something without which all these prescriptions lose much of their meaning. This “something else” can best be described as an “atmosphere”, a “climate” into which one enters, as first of all a state of mind, soul, and spirit which for seven weeks permeates our entire life. Let us stress once more that the purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to “soften” our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden “thirst and hunger” for communion with God.

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St Sophrony of Essex

The trouble with fixed rules is that they appease the consciences of those who can keep them, and give them the feeling that they are saved. That is very naïve. The Pharisees, the ascetics and theologians of the Old Testa­ment, fasted too, but this was not enough. Christ said: “Unless you exceed the virtues of the Pharisees, you cannot be saved”.

Saint Paul, that great genius given to us by divine Providence, affirms that no law has ever led anyone to perfection. That being said, the Church’s rules can none­theless be helpful in the beginning. For it is true that if one is left on one’s own, left to one’s own devices, from the beginning, one can feel rather lost.

It is more difficult to develop a certain capacity for discernment than to fix oneself rules.

In the desert, Christ opposed the temptations of the devil by immediate rejection, even giving the theological bases for His answers. It is a lesson for us. Each time we have a bad thought, we should reject it immediately, and refuse to enter into dialogue with it. But this practice can only be assimilated by long ascetic effort, and by the action of grace in us.

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St John of Kronstadt

What, then, O, brethren, is required of us in order that we might avail ourselves of all the grace brought unto us from on high by the coming to earth of the Son of God? What is necessary, first of all, is faith in the Son of God, in the Gospel as the salvation-bestowing heavenly teaching; a true repentance of sins and the correction of life and of heart; communion in prayer and in the Sacraments; the knowledge and fulfillment of Christ’s commandments. Also necessary are the virtues: Christian humility, almsgiving, continence, purity and chastity, simplicity and goodness of heart.

Let us, then, O brothers and sisters, bring these virtues as a gift to the One Who was born for the sake of our salvation – let us bring them in place of the gold, frankincense and myrrh which the Magi brought Him, as to One Who is King, God, and Man, come to die for us. This, from us, shall be the most-pleasing form of sacrifice to God and to the Infant Jesus Christ.

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St. Paisios of Mt. Athos

Patience stems from love. In order to endure the other person, you must feel deep compassion and pain for him. And I see that the family is saved with patience. I have seen beasts turn into lambs. With trust in God, everything evolves normally and spiritually.

Once when I was in the Monastery of Stomion, I saw in Konitsa a woman whose face was just full of light. She was the mother of five children. Then I remembered who she was. Her husband was a carpenter. A single word spoken to him, for example, “Master John, can this be done this way?” was enough to make him very angry. “You’re going to show me my work?” he would scowl, and he would break his tools, throwing them, and leave. Since he broke things up like this in strangers’ homes, imagine what he did in his own home! Well, this woman was the wife of Master John, the carpenter. No one could stand to be around that man for a single day; yet this woman lived with him for years. She suffered everyday living with him, but she had learned to face everything with kindness and forbearance. Because I knew the situation in their family, I would ask each time I saw her, “How is Master John? Is he working?” “Well, sometimes he works, and sometimes he relaxes a little!” “How are you getting along together in the family?” “Very well, Father!” she would reassure me. And she said it from her heart. She never took into account that he often broke his tools – expensive tools – and that she had to do extra work to get by. Do you see with what patience, with what kindness and with what a noble spirit she faced her many adversities! Nor did she criticise him at all! And for this, God shed His Grace on her, which made her face shine with inner light. She raised her five children to be outstanding individuals and kept the family together.

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Archbishop of Australia Makarios on Prayer

For the Orthodox Church, prayer is a state which involves both the body and soul. It is not a turning into our own selves, an impersonal relationship, but communion between two persons, between myself on one hand, the praying human being and God on the other hand, who is truly present and with whom I am joined with. ‘I pray’ means that I stand before God and speak with Him. That means I partake in a living dialogue, which isn’t confrontational, it doesn’t contain argumentative thoughts or carefully worked out lines of reasoning.
It is a state of faith and internal power, a supernatural energy which moves the person who prays towards eternal life. Besides, Christ became human to defeat death and grant eternal life to us.

But this eternal life doesn’t refer to a an extension within time of our existence after we have died, but the fulfilment of Grace which gives meaning and life to the past and the future, to the body and soul of man. ‘ I stand before God’ means that I use the language of silence and in this way my prayer doesn’t turn into a metaphysical pastime or a daily rule which is based on an ethical religious obligation, but becomes freedom and life. A word which leads to God, person to person, creating a communion which is tender but also strong, which enthuses you but at the same time, brings you peace.

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There is a language with which you communicate without coming into communion with anyone. Worldly dialogue is based on exactly this type of speaking, which it uses as a tool to achieve a specific outcome.

However there is a language with which you commune without means of communication, and there is a mode of language which simply informs. There is language which inspires and transforms humans. There is also a language of the spirit, a religious language. But prayer is the spiritual language par excellence which is the continuation of Pentecost since it is a gift of the Holy Spirit. This language may be theological, but not every theological expression is necessarily spiritual. “The theological expression with the deeper meaning of the word is not born from books or theoretical knowledge but from the ascetic life and prayer, from self-emptying and the experience of God.” (Maxime Egger, «Prologue»: Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov, «On the Spirit and Life», Holy Monastery of the Forerunner, Essex, England.)

To stand then, before God, means that I begin a meaningful dialogue, with a spiritual way of speaking which flows from the upper room of Pentecost, not so that I can persuade or gain anything, but to truly commune with God, whom I love. If we don’t love God and our fellow man, it’s better that we don’t venture into prayer. The language of prayer is not a communicative language, it does not exist to serve needs and purposes or to cover up existential lacunae. The Evangelist very correctly indicates, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

Prayer prepares us for the kingdom of God which we shouldn’t be searching for far away from us. It is a matter for the human heart, to live the presence of God and to feel the things of God as phenomena which take effect in humans and the things of humans as phenomena taking effect in God (Father Michal Kardamakis, “Blood and Tears”.)

I stand before God means that I discover life in all its majesty inside myself and I live the Resurrection before the common Resurrection of all.

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It is not possible for the presence of God to be comprehended in a worldly fashion and with human reason. After all, all the anthropomorphic images we utilise to describe God do not correspond to, or address who He actually is, but serve a liturgical necessity: our own inability to comprehend Him without images and symbols. For this reason, when talking about the presence of God during the time of prayer, we do not refer to some visible ‘figure’ which stands before us, but more so to a state which is lived existentially.

The presence of God constitutes a divine manifestation, which illuminates and opens the eyes of the soul.

After all, Christ came to the world, to free us and make us gods by grace. He came, to give us the ability to see and experience the vision of “the unapproachable light.” He came, so that we can know Him in a manner fitting to God, so that we might feel and experience His presence as light and peace. He came to grant us “the ancient beauty” and adoption as His children. He did not come, to teach us theoretical or legalistic truths or to offer a worldly justice for those who rely on their own strengths and achievements. He came and spoke, “as one possessing the power of love, not like the scribes, ‘He will not quarrel nor cry out’” (Matt. 12:19)(Archimandrite Vasilios, “Beauty will save the world” Holy Monastery of Iveron, Mt. Athos) because the weak and those who are afraid to have complete power over their own selves undermined, also quarrel and cry out. I stand before God means that I transcendently feel and live His presence more so than just seeing it with the eyes of the body.

When man enters into the state of prayer, he comes to realise that the fearsome powers of darkness impede him, through many means, from attaining a sense of stability. For this reason, from his point of view, an enormous amount of power of both soul and body needs to be expended, effort and intensity, at least in the initial stages, until accordingly, prayer can become a way of life. However the vigilance of the one who is praying needs to be permanent and continual, because many times in our spiritual struggle, prayer can appear to be a fruitless endeavour or even a waste of time. Someone might be praying for days and weeks or even years, but never experiences what transforms them coming into their life. They don’t sense that somewhere out there God exists and is listening to them. They don’t see any glimmer of light, nor do they feel warmth or sweetness in their heart. They don’t find desire or hope. They feel as if God has abandoned them, as if He doesn’t want to concern Himself with them. His existence is a nothing, a great emptiness, which disheartens them and even repels them from the task of prayer. This burdening of course, is nowadays felt even more strongly, since humans require some sort of motivation to tire themselves and they want to receive immediate satisfaction. Nothing is without reward. No one waits to receive the fruits of their labours with patience and endurance. Everyone’s in a hurry. And if to this demoralising condition you add the scheming of the devil, which leads man – even one who prays – to thoughts of unbelief and denial of God, of reacting and blaspheming against Him, then all the interest, energy and liveliness in the attempt to pray is lost.

Conversely, the spiritual life will always have ups and downs, and we need to recognise that. Sometimes we may perceive that we are progressing and other times we realise that we are going nowhere. Other times, again, we will lose our courage and reach a point of despair. During other instances, we will possess the power of prayer intensely, but at other points, we will feel that we are talking on our own without purpose. Nevertheless, “these alternating experiences and the states which someone who prays fervently and from the heart undergoes, bring him precious knowledge of the mystery of the ways of salvation…..For every person there exists a unique path towards God,” (Elder Sophrony, “The enlargement of the Heart”) which he enjoys when it is revealed to him in a mystical fashion.

In this way, he comes to know God in a very personal way, which touches all of his existence and changes his whole being. Let it not escape our attention that the difficulty with prayer and our disorientation away from the living God who is standing before us, constitutes one more proof that the power of prayer is immense, regardless of whether we see any results or not.

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One of the devil’s greatest victories, is to convince us that communion with God is a utopia or unachievable. He tries to persuade us that God is not present. That He is not beside us, that He isn’t seeing or hearing us. It’s the same lie which he planted in the souls of the first-created humans, when he trapped them with the temptation that God couldn’t see them, that he was not present among them. We must acknowledge that all these different emotions: that I am useless, that I can’t feel God’s presence, that I experience disillusionment and am overtaken by spiritual listlessness, are nothing else but the stench of the devil and the terror he feels, when he sees us praying before the living God.

But deep down, we know that despite these experiences of denial and disillusionment, God does not cease to be present and alive, since His presence and omnipotence do not depend on our own state of soul and spiritual condition. God does not stop loving us. He loves us and sees us. He does not take back His promises. He does not renege on his word. This Gospel passage always holds true: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matt. 7:7-8)
God forgives our mistakes. He is merciful and long-suffering. “He is so great, so near, so faithful, so powerful, so merciful, that no one could create a more useful person to converse with him.” (Elder Sophrony, “On Prayer”)

Prayer is not a privilege of fallen man. Humans, as creations of God according to His Image and Likeness, have the tendency to pray and seek for union with God, but this presupposes man’s good disposition as well as his free will.
For this reason, we have the commandment and example of prayer from the actual God-Man Christ, who didn’t show us what was natural and self-evident, but those things which lift humans up and make their road to theosis easier. The obstacles and difficulties which occur from time to time, signify a trial of our free will and our freedom. In the struggle of prayer, our love towards God is judged, since it is at this point that we are called to make our choice. Whoever loves God, stands strongly and decisively in his love, and his free will chooses exactly this love of God and nothing else whatsoever.

One cannot love without suffering. And the more someone loves, the greater the pain he suffers. We must love until the end. Prayer is a sign of love towards Christ, with Whom we desire to be united with. It doesn’t however cease to be painful, because it requires great boldness and patience. Let us stand then before God, Who exists despite our own ability to sense Him. Let us stand before Him with wisdom, with discernment and humility, without expecting anything for ourselves. Let us live the freedom of prayer and let us rid ourselves from excuses and choices which keep us encaged in the love of created things. Let us stand before God and pray as the least and most useless servants and as faithful stewards. (Elder Sophrony, “On prayer”) Our prayer is necessary because it joins us to God. We don’t expect that from prayer we will calm down, or that our financial problems will be solved, our psychological issues be cured, that the thoughts which bother us will leave us, or that the pains from our various separations will be healed. We desire one thing: to stand before God and to be in communion with Him. It is Him whom we want to know and love.

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Many times we transfer the mindset of the world into our spiritual life and we attempt to interpret those things which don’t belong in that world with a worldly manner of thinking. Prayer is not a method of spiritual self-affirmation which is based on our own human strengths, because in the Orthodox Church there is no one who is self-affirmed or self-created, only a person who is graced, that is, someone who has been overshadowed with the grace of God. A worldly person will view prayer as an extra opportunity to satisfy a deeper need for a transcendent experience, since through prayer they will gain something for their own benefit. In his eyes he imagines religion to be a means through which he can secure perfect spiritual comfort.

This is why he uses Christ and Theology, prayer and spirituality as a blissful panacea (a cure-all). With this worldly spirit we think that today we will grab a prayer rope in our hands, we will find a spiritual guide and tomorrow the signs of bearing fruit spiritually will start to appear. Prayer however, surpasses the limits of this type of logic. Prayer is an attempt to transition, “soul and body”, to another state. We do not experiment and use prayer to prove ourselves on a personal level or to substantiate for ourselves in practice, that God exists, only when he answers our insistent requests.
Additionally, God’s silence in itself, is an answer, and a negative answer from God is a response.

Prayer is not an opportunity of the here and now, or a happening of a moment in time, but it is our whole life, our existence, our inner world, which comes to understand that in the end, nothing more beautiful and more peaceful exists in life, than to stand before God and to pray to Him, not because I want something in return, but more so, that I delight in this communion with Him. In this manner, mystically and gradually, the union of man with God is accomplished. “The interpenetration of Divine and human life occurs with a twofold movement. Man lifts the energies of his soul towards God, and God condescends towards him.” (Elder Sophrony, “On Prayer”)
He who prays, slowly begins to enter the road towards perfection, receiving strength from the energy of the true God, so that he may struggle to reach his destination. The more he prays, the more he stands against that power which blocks him from reaching the destination of theosis and sanctification.

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With prayer, man receives a stabilising of his self-doubts and becomes more brave and stronger. He is strengthened inside himself with the sense that he is standing before God. Through the prayer of the heart he slowly begins to move into the world of Divine light. The body, even though it is material, ceases to be sensual. The soul may have passions and be latched onto worldly things but prayer engenders another sensation. A turn towards eternity. When the Apostle Paul used to say, “ I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” (2 Corinthians 12:2-4), he gave the main characteristics of his own experience, which was the absence of bodily sensation, and by extension, the absence of sensing the material world and the transfer of his hypostasis (being ‘caught up’) into the spaciousness of Heaven and the sense of the last things. ‘I stand before God’ means a meeting and an experience during which man lives states which cannot be expressed by words. He who stands before Gods stops doubting and being scared. He doesn’t tarry in the angst of the whether his requests have been answered by God.

He feels that he gained the greater gift, which is the entrance into eternal life and, accordingly, he isn’t anxious about small and trivial issues. It’s difficult to live eternal life, having a corruptible body and living in a world which is continually being destroyed. But he who is prayerful, receives at the right time that gift of the foretaste of eternity.

And then he stops thinking, remembering, worrying, fussing over daily things. He lives another state of elevation, of the good alteration. The body descends in to a state of dying whilst being alive and the mind is held captive by the love of God. This state is the foretaste of eternal life. Father Sophrony of Essex used to say that prayer surpasses the immeasurable dimensions of the worldly reality and flashes across the universe instantly like lightning, from one side to the other. (Elder Sophrony, “We Shall see Him as He Is”) Driven by the verse of the Greek National Anthem “that hastefully defines the land”, he would advocate that prayer courses through all the eons, external to the dimension of time, and that the mind of the spiritual person can with one movement, measure the whole world. (Elder Sophrony, “On Prayer”)

Finally, ‘I stand before God’ means that I fall silent. Calling on the name of Christ, which contains all names, I enter into the space of silence. Silence is not so much that I cease talking or thinking as it means to distance myself from my own self and lower myself into non-existence.

As someone matures spiritually the more they keep silent, even during the time of prayer. It’s not what you say or do. But exactly that internal experience you possess, the sensation of fulfillment that you are standing before God. All of these things, which are not a utopia nor unachievable and for which you don’t exclusively need to be a bishop or monk to experience, are easy and accessible to all those who love Christ and wish to have communion with Him. Grace will come with a little patience and then many things which we can’t comprehend right now, since our mind has not attained a complete understanding of all things, we will comprehend experientially and in ourselves.

Of course, gifts are precious and make a difference because they always come with surprises. It’s a gift to be taken in a moment to eternity, but the return back to the reality of our world is unavoidable. This return however, to the solidity of this world, makes us desire Christ even more and long for His Kingdom with a calm and peaceful state of anticipation. Prayer is a consequence of the spiritualisation of the senses, underlining the unbreakable unity of the human person and shows that the body is saved and sanctified together with the soul.

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Archimandrite Irinei, The Beginnings of a Life of Prayer

Amongst the most difficult and pernicious of all the thoughts that come upon us in times of prayer (as indeed at many other times) are those of judgment: judgment against our brethren for their wrongs, their faults, their shortcomings. Thoughts enter into our mind that remind us of failings we have witnessed or believe we have identified, and these furrow their way into our heart and occupy our attention with great force. For this reason, they must be dismissed at the first sign of their advent, before they gain any footing in our interior life. The moment they are allowed entrance to the heart, the spiritual battle for prayer is lost.

Judgment of a brother kills prayer. It destroys even the beginnings of prayer—that ardent desire and longing to abide in God and rest in Him—for in judging we create in ourselves not the opportunity for union with the Trinity, but division and separation from the Lord.

When the Lord commands us, “Judge not, lest ye be judged”, let this be for us a guide and rule to prayer. Should the just Master judge our heart rightly, we would find ourselves cast into the outer darkness, where the union of true prayer is neither a hope nor a possibility. Yet in His love He overlooks our sins and offers divine forgiveness. So let us likewise dismiss judgment and with it all condemnation of our brethren, so that we may exercise divine love and grow closer to God.

It is impossible to love God if we do not love our neighbour, and it is impossible to love our neighbour if judgment is our secret greeting and the substance of our hidden relationship with him. Do not claim to pray, or even to be a Christian, if your heart fosters any judgment of your brother!                                                                                              

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(The Catechetical Sermon of St. John Chrysostom as read during Matins of Pascha)

If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If any man be a wise servant, let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord. If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense. If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the feast. If any have arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; because he shall in nowise be deprived thereof. If any have delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near, fearing nothing. If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness; for the Lord, who is jealous of his honor, will accept the last even as the first; he gives rest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour, even as unto him who has wrought from the first hour.

And he shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first; and to the one he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts. And he both accepts the deeds, and welcomes the intention, and honors the acts and praises the offering. Wherefore, enter you all into the joy of your Lord; and receive your reward, both the first, and likewise the second. You rich and poor together, hold high festival. You sober and you heedless, honor the day. Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast. The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.

Enjoy ye all the feast of faith: Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness. let no one bewail his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shown forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions. It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked. It was embittered, for it was slain. It was embittered, for it was overthrown. It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains. It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.

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– Geronda, a mother told me, “My body is very weak and I get very tired, I don’t even have time to finish my chores, let alone say my prayers properly.”

– She has to simplify her life so that she can have time to pray. A mother can make great progress through simplicity. If a mother has simplified her life but still gets tired because she has many children, then, yes, she is entitled to say, “I am tired.” But if she wearies herself trying to make the house look good for the guests, well then, what can we say? Some mothers, in order to keep the house tidy, asphyxiate the children, they impose a military type of discipline. A wise and discriminating person, seeing an immaculate home with many children, will come to the conclusion that either the children are damaged, or the mother is barbarian and imposes military discipline. Once I had gone to visit the home of a large family. I was so pleased to see the children with their childish naughtiness spoiling the worldly order of things – which requires having everything in its place. That is the greater disorder which wearies contemporary man.

In the past, there weren’t that many spiritual books available for a mother to read and be helped. Today, even though there are many Patristic texts and a lot of translated works available, unfortunately most mothers are either preoccupied with foolish things or they work in order to make ends meet. It’s better for a mother to be involved with the nurturing of her children, rather than being overly involved with household chores and inanimate objects.

+ St Paisios

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There is still time for endurance, time for patience, time for healing, time for change. Have you slipped? Rise up. Have you sinned? Cease. Do not stand among sinners, but leap aside.

They who sow courtesy reap friendship, and they who plant kindness gather love.

Lust has these three companions: the first, blindness of understanding; the second, hardness of heart; the third, want of grace.

Leisure without the fear of God is, for those who do not know how to use time, the teacher of wickedness.

Troubles are usually the brooms and shovels that smooth the road to a good man’s fortune; and many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger.

Human life is but of brief duration. ‘All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God shall stand forever’ (Isa. 40:6). Let us hold fast to the commandment that abides, and despise the unreality that passes away.

Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the adoption of sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory, and, in a word, our being brought into a state of all “fullness of blessing,” both in this world and in the world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us, by promise hereof, through faith, beholding the reflection of their grace as though they were already present, we await the full enjoyment.

+ St. Basil the Great

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The Nativity of Christ.—He has come upon earth, He Who in the beginning created us from earth and breathed His Divine breath into us; He has come Who “giveth to all life, and breath, and all things” (Acts xvii. 25.); He has come, He Who by a single word called all things visible and invisible from non-existence into existence.

And in what humility has He come! He is born of a poor Virgin, in a cave, wrapped in poor swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. Riches, honours, glory of this world fall down, fall down in humility, tearful devotion, and deep gratitude before the Saviour of men, and share your riches with the poor and needy. Do not pride yourselves on your visionary, fleeting distinctions, for true distinction can only be found in virtue. Glory of this world learn here, before the manger, your vanity. Thus, let us all humble ourselves; let us all fall down in the dust before the boundless humility and exhaustion of the Sovereign of all, of God, Who has come to heal our infirmities, to save us from pride, vanity, corruption, and every sinful impurity.

+ St John of Kronstadt

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A Christian must be courteous to all. His words and deeds should breathe with the grace of the Holy Spirit, which abides in his soul, so that in this way he might glorify the name of God. The graceful speech of a Christian is characterized by delicateness and politeness. This fact, born of love, produces peace and joy…

Christians, have we understood the great responsibility that we have taken on before God through baptism? Have we come to know that we must conduct ourselves as children of God, that we must align our will with the will of God, that we must remain free from sin, that we must love God with all our hearts and always patiently await union with Him? Have we thought about the fact that our heart should be so filled with love that it should overflow to our neighbor? Do we have the feeling that we must become holy and perfect, children of God and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven? We must struggle for this, so that we may not be shown unworthy and rejected. Let none of us lose our boldness, nor neglect our duties, nor be afraid of the difficulties of spiritual struggle. For we have God as a helper, who strengthens us in the difficult path of virtue…

We have within us deeply rooted weaknesses, passions, and defects. This can not all be cut out with one sharp motion, but patience, persistence, care and attention. The path leading to perfection is long. Pray to God so that he will strengthen you. Patiently accept your falls and, having stood up, immediately run to God, not remaining in that place where you have fallen. Do not despair if you keep falling into your old sins. Many of them are strong because they have received the force of habit. Only with the passage of time and with fervor will they be conquered. Don’t let anything deprive you of hope…

Attention is the first teacher of truth and consequently absolutely necessary. Attention rouses the soul to study itself and its longings, to learn their true character and repulse those that are unholy. Attention awakens the soul, rouses it from sleep…Attention examines every thought, every desire, every memory. Thoughts, desires, and memories are engendered by various causes, and often appear masked and with splendid garb, in order to deceive the inattentive intellect and enter into the soul and dominate it. Only attention can reveal their form. Often their dissimulation is so perfect that the discernment of their true nature is very difficult. One must remember the saving words of the Lord: “Be wakeful and pray that you enter not into temptation.”

+ St Nektarios of Aegina

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The great tragedy of our time lies in the fact that we live, speak, think, and even pray to God, outside our heart, outside our Father’s house. And truly our Father’s house is our heart, the place where ‘the spirit of glory and of God’ (1 Pet. 4:14) would find repose, that Christ may ‘be formed in us’ (Gal. 4:19). Indeed, only then can we be made whole, and become hypostases in the image of the true and perfect Hypostasis, the Son and Word of God, Who created us and redeemed us by the precious Blood of His ineffable sacrifice.

Yet, as long as we are held captive by our passions, which distract our mind from our heart and lure it into the ever-changing and vain world of natural and created things, thus depriving us of all spiritual strength, we will not know the new birth from on High that makes us children of God and gods by grace. In fact, in one way or another, we are all ‘prodigal sons’ of our Father in heaven, because, as the Scriptures testify, ‘All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God’ (Rom. 3:23). Sin has separated our mind from the life-giving contemplation of God and led it into a ‘far country’ (Luke 9:15). In this ‘far country’ we have been deprived of the honour of our Father’s embrace and, in feeding swine, we have been made subject to demons. We gave ourselves over to dishonourable passions and the dreadful famine of sin, which then established itself by force, becoming the law of our members. But now we must come out of this godless hell and return to our Father’s house, so as to uproot the law of sin that is within us and allow the law of Christ’s commandments to dwell in our heart. For the only path leading out of the torments of hell to the everlasting joy of the Kingdom is that of the divine commandments: with our whole being we are to love God and our neighbour with a heart that is free of all sin.

Archimandrite Zacharias of Essex

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How happy are we Christians! What God is ours!

How much to be pitied are those who do not know God…

O, unhappy, erring peoples! They cannot know what true joy is…

But our joy is Christ. By His sufferings He has inscribed us in the Book of Life, and in the Kingdom of heaven we shall be with God for ever, and we shall see His glory, and delight in Him. Our joy is the Holy Spirit, so pleasant and delectable. He bears witness to the soul of her salvation.

O brethren, I beg and pray you in the name of God’s compassion, believe in the Gospels and in the witness of the Holy Church, and you will, while still here on earth, savour the blessedness of Paradise. For the Kingdom of God is within us; with the love of God the soul knows Paradise. Many princes and prelates abandoned their thrones when they came to know the love of God. And this we can understand, because the love of God is a consuming love – it gladdens the soul to the point of tears by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and no earthly things can compare with it.

+ St Silouan of Mount Athos

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Do not remain idle as you are now. It takes forcefulness; it takes a struggle; it takes extreme humility and perfect obedience. So don’t just stand there, but cry out, “My dear Christ! My dear Panagia!” Do not become enervated and do not accept thoughts from the devil. Cry out to Christ continuously. Do not let the tempter have time to create the thought in your nous. Before he has time to do so, you should destroy it with the prayer. When you allow the filth that the enemy throws in you to remain inside you, well, in a little while he will bury you in it. Afterwards, what a struggle it takes to be cleansed! Therefore, exert yourself. It takes toil and pain; it is no joke! Your heart will drip blood. Bitterness and venom will you drink, and thus you will receive freedom and taste sweetness. Do not underestimate the struggle. You must keep crying out like a lunatic, “Save me, my dear Jesus! All-holy Theotokos, help me!” Your tongue should run like a motor, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me! Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me! Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” And when you get tired, a consolation will come to you that you have never tasted before. However, if you remain idle and negligent as you are now, you will not be cured unto the ages….

I cannot describe to you how much our Panagia likes chastity and purity. Since she is the only-pure Virgin, she wants and loves everyone to be like that. As soon as we cry out to her she rushes to our help… She draws the nous to prayer and the heart to love. Many times the entire night passes in tears and sweet cries, singing praises to her and especially to Him Whom she carries.

+ Elder Joseph the Hesychast

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Some people tell me that they are scandalized because they see many things wrong in the Church. I tell them that if you ask a fly, “Are there any flowers in this area?” it will say, “I don’t know about flowers, but over there in that heap of rubbish where you can find all the filth you want.” And it will go on to list all the unclean things it has been to.

Now, if you ask a honeybee, “Have you seen any unclean things in this area?” it will reply, “Unclean things? No, I have not seen any; the place here is full of the most fragrant flowers.” And it will go on to name all the flowers of the garden or the meadow.

You see, the fly only knows where the unclean things are, while the honeybee knows where the beautiful iris or hyacinth is.

As I have come to understand, some people resemble the honeybee and some resemble the fly. Those who resemble the fly seek to find evil in every circumstance and are preoccupied with it; they see no good anywhere. But those who resemble the honeybee only see the good in everything they see. The foolish person thinks foolishly and takes everything in the wrong way, whereas the person who has good thoughts, no matter what he sees, no matter what you tell him, maintains a positive and good thought.

+ St. Paisios of Mt. Athos

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If you would know of the Lord’s love for us, hate sin and wrong thoughts, and day and night pray fervently. The Lord will then give you His grace, and you will know Him through the Holy Spirit, and after death, when you enter into paradise, there too you will know the Lord through the Holy Spirit, as you knew Him on earth.

We do not need riches or learning in order to know the Lord: we must simply be obedient and sober, have a humble spirit and love our fellow-men. The Lord will love a soul that does this, and of His own accord make Himself manifest to her and instruct her in love and humility, and give her all things necessary for her to find rest in God.

We may study as much as we will but we shall still not come to know the Lord unless we live according to His commandments, for the Lord is not made known through learning but by the Holy Spirit. Many philosophers and scholars have arrived at a belief in the existence of God, but they have not come to know God.

To believe in a God is one thing, to know God another…

O ye peoples of the earth, fashioned by God, know your Creator and His love for us! Know the love of Christ, and live in peace and thereby rejoice in the Lord, who in His mercy waits for all men to come to Him.

Know, all you peoples, that we are created for the glory of God in the heavens. Cleave not to the earth, for God is our Father and He loves us like beloved children.

St Silouan of Mt Athos

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Marriage and Μonasticism

The two complement each other.. . Both are sacraments of love … It is tempting to make a simple contrast: to say that asceticism and chastity are the characteristics of monasticism, and love the characteristic of marriage. Yet the two states cannot be thus opposed. Married people, as well as monks, are called to the “narrow way” of ascetic life, to fasting and self-denial; if the monks are martyrs, then so also are the married, as the crowns and hymns and the Marriage Service plainly indicate. Perfect love is always a crucified love; yet, for both monks and married Christians, if the cross is voluntarily accepted, it proves a door to resurrection and new life. In the same way, chastity – understood in its proper sense of integrity and integration – is a quality not only of the single but also of the married life. In a sense, marriage includes within itself the characteristic values of monasticism: the monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience – when understood, as they should be, in a positive manner as a way of enabling us to be free to love God and one another – are also applicable to the married life. And if asceticism and chastity are marks of the married life, then love.., is a mark of a true monk.. If the monk abstains from marriage, this is not because the married state is sinful, but because he personally is called to express his love for God and humankind on a different level… Marriage and monasticism are the “two hands”‘ of the Church, the two complementary expressions of one royal priesthood. Each needs the other, and in her mission the Church uses both her hands together.

Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia

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If Lent is the recovery by man of his faith, it is also his recovery of life, of its divine meaning, of its sacred depth. It is by abstaining from food that we rediscover its sweetness and learn again how to receive it from God with joy and gratitude. It is by “slowing down” on music and entertainment, on conversation and superficial socializing, that we rediscover the ultimate value of human relationships, human work, human art. And we rediscover all this because very simply we rediscover God Himself—because we return to Him and in Him to all that which He gave us in His infinite love and mercy. And thus, on Easter night we sing: “Today are all things filled with light, Heaven and earth and the places under the earth; all creation does celebrate the Resurrection of Christ on whom it is founded….” Of this expectation, do not deprive us, O Lover of Man!

– Fr Alexander Schmemann

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For many, if not for the majority of Orthodox Christians, Lent consists of a limited number of formal, predominantly negative, rules and prescriptions: abstention from certain food, dancing, perhaps movies. Such is the degree of our alienation from the real spirit of the Church that it is almost impossible for us to understand that there is “something else” in Lent—something without which all these prescriptions lose much of their meaning. This “something else” can best be described as an “atmosphere,” a “climate” into which one enters, as first of all a state of mind, soul, and spirit which for seven weeks permeates our entire life. Let us stress once more that the purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to “soften” our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden “thirst and hunger” for communion with God.

– Fr Alexander Schmemann

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“When someone steals another’s clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor…

“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love…

” We need not only read Sacred Scripture, but learn it as well and grow up in it. Realize that nothing is written in Scripture unnecessarily. Not to read Sacred Scripture is a great evil…

” There is still time for endurance, time for patience, time for healing, time for change. Have you slipped? Rise up. Have you sinned? Cease. Do not stand among sinners, but leap aside”.

― Basil the Great

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Man seeks joy and happiness in heaven. He seeks what is eternal far from everyone and everything. He seeks to find joy in God. God is a mystery. He is silence. He is infinite. He is everything. Everyone possesses this inclination of the soul for heaven. All people seek something heavenly. All beings turn towards Him, albeit unconsciously.

Turn your mind towards Him continually. Learn to love prayer, familiar converse with the Lord. What counts above all is love, passionate love for the Lord, for Christ the Bridegroom. Become worthy of Christ’s love. In order not to live in darkness, turn on the switch of prayer so that divine light may flood your soul. Christ will appear in the depths of your being. There, in the deepest and most inward part, is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21)….

He who has my commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves me; and he who loves me shall be loved by my Father and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. (John 14:31).

Effort is required. For we have to wrestle against the rulers of the darkness of this age (Eph. 6:12). We have to wrestle with the roaring lion [1 Pet. 5:8]. We cannot allow the devious enemy to prevail in the struggle.

St Porphyrios

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Christians, have we understood the great responsibility that we have taken on before God through baptism? Have we come to know that we must conduct ourselves as children of God, that we must align our will with the will of God, that we must remain free from sin, that we must love God with all our hearts and always patiently await union with Him? Have we thought about the fact that our heart should be so filled with love that it should overflow to our neighbor? Do we have the feeling that we must become holy and perfect, children of God and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven? We must struggle for this, so that we may not be shown unworthy and rejected. Let none of us lose our boldness, nor neglect our duties, nor be afraid of the difficulties of spiritual struggle. For we have God as a helper, who strengthens us in the difficult path of virtue….

We have within us deeply rooted weaknesses, passions, and defects. This can not all be cut out with one sharp motion, but patience, persistence, care and attention. The path leading to perfection is long. Pray to God so that he will strengthen you. Patiently accept your falls and, having stood up, immediately run to God, not remaining in that place where you have fallen. Do not despair if you keep falling into your old sins. Many of them are strong because they have received the force of habit. Only with the passage of time and with fervor will they be conquered. Don’t let anything deprive you of hope.

St Nektarios

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The negative inherited traits are not a hindrance to spiritual progress. For when one is struggling, even slightly but with great philotimo, then he is moving in the spiritual realm, in the miraculous, and all the unpleasant inherited traits are dispelled by the Grace of God. God is greatly moved, and indeed helps the one who may have inherited negative traits but is struggling, with philotimo, to fly heavenwards, using an atrophied wing- the bad inheritance. I know many people who, with their own small amount of effort and the great help of God, were delivered from their legacies. In God’s eyes, these people are great heroes, for what moves God is the work we do on the old man….

God is kind by nature and always provides for our good and, when we ask Him for something, He will provide it, as long as it is for our good. Whatever is necessary for the salvation of our soul and for the maintenance of our physical existence, God will provide it in abundance, and we will have His blessing. Whatever He deprives us of, either to test us or to protect us, we accept with joy as well as with thoughtfulness, as it is for our benefit. God knows when and how to provide for His creation.. He helps in His own way at the right time…

St Paisos

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Is it really possible to deny God only because everyday experience does not give Him to us? But we know that “everyday experience” is in no way absolute, that it encompasses only some superficial sides of events and phenomena, that plain common sense is limited, and that there are many irrefutable facts which do not fit into what would seem to be unshakable, self-evident truth. Everyday experience gives us almost none of the things modern scientists talk about, but we believe their experience; we believe them without even knowing them or having the remotest possibility of testing the larger part of their assumptions and conclusion. On what grounds do we disbelieve the innumerably greater quantity of religious experiences, the testimony of people who are pure as crystal?

The experience of these experts in the “science of sciences” does not speak of unsubstantiated faith, nor of opinion, nor of an accepted hypothesis, nor even simple tradition, but of the fact of their knowledge of God.

The main experience of religion – a meeting with God – possesses (at least in its highest points) such a victorious power and fiery conviction, that it leaves any other obviousness far behind. It can be forgotten or lost, but not denied…. If people of faith began to tell about themselves, about what they have seen and learned with final certainty, then a whole mountain would form under which the mound of sceptical rationalism would be buried and hidden from sight.

Knowledge of God is an exact science, and not a chaos of mystical ecstasies and unhealthy exultations caused by inflamed nerves. Knowledge of God has its own systems, conditions, and criteria. How can we attain the knowledge of God? It begins with a selfless search for the truth, for the meaning of life and moral purity, and by forcing oneself towards goodness. Without such a beginning, the “experiment” of knowing God cannot be successful. These conditions are expressed in the Gospels briefly and clearly: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”. (Mt 5:8).

Alexei Ospipov

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Christ is in our midst.

I fully sympathize with your experiences. Even now you are troubled by sins committed in your youth. The enemy of mankind, the devil, made you afraid to open your distressed heart to me when you were here at the monastery.

It is always like that; when a person commits a sin, he thinks he gets consolation from it, but after he has tasted sin, the result is the opposite: great sorrow and languor of spirit, and the poor soul feels like a fish cast ashore. It is a hard situation and a person all but despairs. At such a difficult moment it would be good to talk to an experienced person, who could, of course, undoubtedly help.

There is no sin that is beyond God’s mercy, and the sins of the whole world are like a handful of sand thrown into the sea.

But you write: “Will the Lord forgive me?” You confessed and repented. The Lord forgave you and does not remember your sins. Be sure of this. In your difficult time of the past your poor soul suffered and endured the cost of sin. But now be at peace and thank God for his holy mercy.

God accepts equally the Jesus Prayer and remembrance of God. Remembrance of God suits your way of life better. Prayer of the mind must proceed under the guidance of an experienced person who himself knows about it from his experience.

The Lord keep you. I ask for your holy prayers.

(Letters from a Russian monk, Father John)

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Woe to those who are rich, who are full, who laugh, and who are praised. But good shall come to those who endure every wrongful accusation, beating, robbery, or compulsory difficulty. This is com­pletely opposite to what people usu­ally think and feel! The thoughts of God are as far from human thoughts as heaven is from the earth. How else could it be? We are in exile; and it is not remarkable for those in exile to be offended and in­sulted. We are under a penance; the penance consists of deprivations and labors. We are sick; and most useful for the sick are bitter medi­cines. The Savior Himself all of His life did not have a place to lay His head, and He finished his life on the cross — why should his followers have a better lot? The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of preparedness to suffer and bear good-naturedly all that is sorrowful. Comfort, arro­gance, splendor, and ease are all foreign to its searching and tastes. The model is the forty-year wandering of the Israelites in the desert. Who follows this path? Ev­eryone who sees Canaan beyond the desert, boiling over with milk and honey. During his wandering he too receives manna, however not from the earth, but from heav­en; not bodily, but spiritually. All the glory is within.

+ St. Theophan the Recluse

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“What I see around me would drive me insane if I did not know that no matter what happens, God will have the last word.” — St Paisios of the Holy Mountain

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If there is one overarching debasement of the Christian vision in our, days, it is in the loss of a constant gaze upon the future life of man in the Kingdom. The focus of the saeculum, of the secular world, is upon the now. This moment, this world, this life: these are the contexts of meaning. While the Christian may often acknowledge the Kingdom, may even speak of its attainment and its nature, how rarely today does an orientation of all life and living around and toward this Kingdom actually manifest itself, even among the baptized. Rather, the Kingdom of God is often taken as a kind of “backdrop” by which one can give a Christian flavour to the present. “I shall do such-and-such now, because such an act is loving, and the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of love”. Or, “I shall seek this good now, rather than that, because God’s Kingdom focuses on such aims”. It is not that there is no nobility in such reflections (certainly, they are better than a view which takes no account at all of the Kingdom); but the Christian life demands more than this; Christ does not say, “When you consider this life, remember the Kingdom and so let it inform what you seek”; rather, He commands: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Only after He has given this sole and primary focus to Christian endeavour, does He add: and all these things will be added unto you.

Archimandrite Irinei

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If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the Church door, you will not find Him in the chalice.

No matter how just your words may be, you ruin everything when you speak with anger.

There is nothing colder than a Christian who does not seek to save others.

If you wish to leave much wealth to your children, leave them in God’s care. Do not leave them riches, but virtue and skill.

Since it is likely that, being men, they would sin every day, St. Paul consoles his hearers by saying “renew yourselves” from day to day. This is what we do with houses: we keep constantly repairing them as they wear old. You should do the same thing to yourself. Have you sinned today? Have you made your soul old? Do not despair, do not despond, but renew your soul by repentance, and tears, and Confession, and by doing good things. And never cease doing this.

Be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent.

Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward and learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.

+ St. John Chrysostom

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Shine in our hearts, O Master who loves man, the incorruptible light of Your divine knowledge, and open the eyes of our mind to the comprehension of the preaching of Your Gospel. Instil in us also the fear of Your blessed commandments that, trampling down all carnal desires, we may pursue a spiritual way of life, both considering and doing all things well-pleasing to You…

O Lord our God, who has granted forgiveness to men through repentance, and has shown, as an example to us of the knowledge of sins and confession, the repentance of the Prophet David unto pardon, do You Yourself, O Master, in the manifold and great offenses into which we have fallen, have mercy according to Your great mercy, and according to the multitude of Your compassions. Blot out our transgressions; for against You have we sinned, O Lord, who knows both the hidden and secret things of the heart of man, and alone has authority to forgive sins; inasmuch as You have created a clean heart in us, and with Your guiding Spirit You have established us, and has made known to us the joy of Your salvation. Cast us not away from Your face; but be graciously willing for us to offer to You even until our last breath a sacrifice of righteousness and an offering upon Your holy altar. Through the mercies and compassion and love of man of Your only-begotten Son, with whom You are blessed, together with Your all-holy and good and life-creating Spirit, now and ever, and to ages of ages. Amen.

(Taken from prayers read by Priest during Matins service)

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We have within us deeply rooted weaknesses, passions, and defects. This cannot all be cut out with one sharp motion, but patience, persistence, care and attention. The path leading to perfection is long. Pray to God so that he will strengthen you. Patiently accept your falls and, having stood up, immediately run to God, not remaining in that place where you have fallen. Do not despair if you keep falling into your old sins. Many of them are strong because they have received the force of habit. Only with the passage of time and with fervour will they be conquered. Don’t let anything deprive you of hope…

A Christian must be courteous to all. His words and deeds should breathe with the grace of the Holy Spirit, which abides in his soul, so that in this way he might glorify the name of God. He who regulates all of his speech also regulates all of his actions. He who keeps watch over the words he is about say also keeps watch over the deeds he intends to do, and he never goes out of the bounds of good and benevolent conduct. The graceful speech of a Christian is characterized by delicateness and politeness. This fact, born of love, produces peace and joy. On the other hand, idle talk gives birth to hatred, enmity, affliction, competitiveness, disorder and wars….

Do not think that you have a right to complain when your prayers are not answered. God fulfils your desires in a manner that you do not know.

– St. Nektarios of Aegina

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This foretaste of the new creation—of a world transfigured—is also experienced by the Church in the countenance of her saints who, through their spiritual struggles and virtues, have already revealed the image of the Kingdom of God in this life, thereby proving and affirming that the expectation of a world of peace, justice, and love is not a utopia, but the substance of things hoped for (Heb 11:1) , attainable through the grace of God and man’s spiritual struggle.

Finding constant inspiration in this expectation and foretaste of the Kingdom of God, the Church cannot remain indifferent to the problems of humanity in each period. On the contrary, she shares in our anguish and existential problems, taking upon herself—as the Lord did—our suffering and wounds, which are caused by evil in the world and, like the Good Samaritan, pouring oil and wine upon our wounds through words of patience and comfort (Rom 15:4; Heb 13:22), and through love in practice. The word addressed to the world is not primarily meant to judge and condemn the world (cf. Jn 3:17; 12:47), but rather to offer to the world the guidance of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God—namely, the hope and assurance that evil, no matter its form, does not have the last word in history and must not be allowed to dictate its course.

The conveyance of the Gospel’s message according to the last commandant of Christ, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matt 28:19) is the diachronic mission of the Church. This mission must be carried out not aggressively or by different forms of proselytism, but in love, humility and respect towards the identity of each person and the cultural particularity of each people. All the Orthodox Church have an obligation to contribute to this missionary endeavour.

Drawing from these principles and the accumulated experience and teaching of her patristic, liturgical, and ascetical tradition, the Orthodox Church shares the concern and anxiety of contemporary humanity with regard to fundamental existential questions that preoccupy the world today. She thus desires to help resolve these issues, allowing the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:7), reconciliation, and love to prevail in the world.

[Taken from an official document of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, held in Crete, June 2016]

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Christ is in our midst!

You write of your illnesses that they are sent by God for your sins. No, you must not think that way. The Lord’s thoughts are unsearchable, and our limited little minds cannot understand why different kinds of sicknesses and sorrows are given by God to different ones of us sinners. But realize that in this vale of tears, this temporal life, we cannot escape them. The Lord give you wisdom! Don’t think of God as a very stern judge and punisher. He is very merciful; He took human flesh and suffered as a man, not for the saints’ sake but for sinners like you and me. We must not despair, for there is no sin that exceeds God’s compassion. It is always the devil that brings despair; one must not listen to him.

Try as far as possible to fulfil the Lord’s commandments. Judge no one for anything and you will not be judged. If you watch yourself, you will of course find sins, which will show you that you have no cause to condemn others. And also: ‘Whatever you do not wish for yourself, do not do it to others either’, and other Gospel commandments.

You also write that you used to pray better, but now you do not hear the Lord knocking at your heart. Do not think like that either! Your prayer used to be dreamy and you thought something of yourself, but now you have begun to understand a little – so you can see yourself more truly. The closer a person comes to God, the more sinful he sees himself to be. St Peter Damascene writes: ‘If a person sees his sins like the sands of the sea, that is a sign of a healthy soul’. This is the position of the saints, and they are experienced in the spiritual life. But people want to see themselves as correct in every respect.

Letters from Father John, a Russian Monk

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The wise spiritual life was explained with precision by the Holy Fathers in their writings, but what they wrote can best be understood by being lived. If you yourself work to free your heart of passions, then everything will be clearer and more understandable.

You write that your duties distract you from prayer. As you work, keep the memory of God; this too is prayer. It is good that you have this striving for the spiritual life and for prayer. This is already half of salvation, and God will help you to go further. Only do not be depressed and fainthearted; may the Lord help you.

You also write that you have not even reached a beginning. This feeling is a good thing, it leads to humility. According to the law of spiritual knowledge, spiritual life has to be like this. The closer a man comes to God, the more he sees his faults and his sinfulness. Lord, deliver man from seeing himself as righteous.

Do not get excited, do not strive for the highest things prematurely. In the spiritual life one does not make leaps and bounds, it has to be gradual, with patience.

Father John, a Russian monk

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Excuses have nothing to do with the spiritual life. I must understand that when I try to justify myself with excuses, I’m in a wrong state of mind. I cut off my communication with God and am deprived of divine Grace, because divine Grace does not come to one who is in a wrong state. The moment a person justifies the unjustifiable, he is separated from God. There is no stronger barrier to the Grace of God than excuses! One who justifies himself with excuses makes no progress in the spiritual life, nor can he find any inner peace. God will not condemn us for a mistake we have made, but we must not try to justify ourselves for that mistake, and consider it to be just a natural thing.

If you think that you’re at fault 25 percent, when in fact you are at fault only five percent, don’t you profit spiritually? Be “generous” when weighing your faults; you don’t want to short-change yourself spiritually. This is the spiritual work you must do: find and acknowledge your fault, and “catch” yourself next time. Otherwise, you are “caught” by yourself; you justify yourself but you find no peace.

St Paisios the Hagiorite

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The wise spiritual life was explained with precision by the Holy Fathers in their writings, but what they wrote can best be understood by being lived. If you yourself work to free your heart of passions, then everything will be clearer and more understandable….

You write that your duties distract you from prayer. As you work, keep the memory of God; this too is prayer. It is good that you have this striving for the spiritual life and for prayer. This is already half of salvation, and God will help you to go further. Only do not be depressed and fainthearted; may the Lord help you.

You also write that you have not even reached a beginning. This feeling is a good thing, it leads to humility. According to the law of spiritual knowledge, spiritual life has to be like this. The closer a man comes to God, the more he sees his faults and his sinfulness. Lord, deliver man from seeing himself as righteous.

Letters from a Russian Monk- Father John

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This new experience – this opening of the heavens and the expansion of the horizon – is one of the most beautiful experiences that a person can have. From then on, the character of our life is changed. From then on, we soar through the sky on wings. Provided we want to. Because there’s always the chance that, in our soaring flight, a treacherous, critical moment might come when we remember our self and prefer it over everything else. All things are indeed ours. But all things will turn against us like a bitter enemy if once again we become confined within ourselves.

But the moment we reject such narrowness and enter into the breadth and know the depth of the love of Christ (Eph 3.19), we discover that the whole world is ours: the earth, the sea, and the sky are all for us; so too the angels, the saints, and all the sacraments of the Church. And God Himself – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – is wholly ours, for He gives to us His fullness. Do you see? You renounced yourself, and in return received God.

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra

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A man who has never had that experience, be it only very briefly, who has never felt that he is exiled from God and from real life, will never understand what Christianity is about. And the one who is perfectly “at home” in this world and its life, who has never been wounded by the nostalgic desire for another Reality, will not understand what is repentance.

Repentance is often simply identified as a cool and “objective” enumeration of sins and transgressions, as the act of “pleading guilty” to a legal indictment. Confession and absolution are seen as being of a juridical nature. But something very essential is overlooked—without which neither confession nor absolution have any real meaning or power. This “something” is precisely the feeling of alienation from God, from the joy of communion with Him, from the real life as created and given by God. It is easy indeed to confess that I have not fasted on prescribed days, or missed my prayers, or become angry. It is quite a different thing, however, to realize suddenly that I have defiled and lost my spiritual beauty, that I am far away from my real home, my real life, and that something precious and pure and beautiful has been hopelessly broken in the very texture of my existence. Yet this, and only this, is repentance, and therefore it is also a deep desire to return, to go back, to recover that lost home. I received from God wonderful riches: first of all life and the possibility to enjoy it, to fill it with meaning, love, and knowledge; then—in Baptism—the new life of Christ Himself, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the peace and the joy of the eternal Kingdom. I received the knowledge of God, and in Him the knowledge of everything else and the power to be a son of God. And all this I have lost, all this I am losing all the time, not only in particular “sins” and “transgressions,” but in the: sin of all sins: the deviation of my love from God, preferring the “far country” to the beautiful home of the Father… But the Church is here to remind me of what I have abandoned and lost…

From the book Great Lent by Fr Alexander Schmemann

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You write that our duties distract you from prayer. As you work, keep the memory of God, this too is prayer. It is good that you have this striving for the spiritual life and for prayer. This is already half of salvation, and God will help you to go further….

In conclusion I would like to say: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). What you do not want done to you, do not do to others, that is the golden rule. Remind yourself often of the hour of death and never condemn anyone for anything, because whatever you condemn others for, you will fall into the same sins, it is never otherwise.

From the letters of Fr John, a Russian monk

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Let us tend to ourselves, brothers, let us learn self-control while we have time. Why do we neglect ourselves? Let us be doing something good all the time so that we may find help in the time of trial. Why do we fritter away our lives? We are always hearing a great deal about the spiritual life and we don’t care about it, we even despise it. We see our brothers snatched away from our midst and we don’t abstain [from passion and excess] even when we know that in a little while we too shall be near death. Why do we not remember that saying of the senior that, “If a man lose gold and silver, he can always find more to replace it. Time once lost cannot be found again by living in idleness and negligence. No matter how hard we try to regain one hour of this time we shall never find it”. How many desire to hear the word of God and find no one to expound it, while we hear and despise it and are not stirred up by it. God knows, I am frightened by our imperviousness. We who can be saved, and do not even desire it. For we can cut off our unruly desires when they are newly born and we don’t think about it; we allow them to grow up and harden against us so that we make the last evil greater than the first. For, as often I tell you, it is one thing to uproot a blade of grass and another to uproot a great tree.

St Dorotheos of Gaza

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The Christian struggle is waged in the heart, for this is the focal point of creation itself. It is here that we see the fullness of the Creator’s purpose, and here that the whole of creation finds its summation. It is the human person who is the capstone of God’s creative work, which exists as a microcosm of all creation. And so any struggle which seeks to Christianize the cosmos, to evangelize and fulfil Christ’s call to mission, yet which does not begin with the human heart, works with secondary things rather than primary. Such action is analogous to one who seeks to repair a crumbling house by working on its outer timbers, while its foundations remain in crumbling disintegration. The foundations must be repaired and strengthened first; only then can the remainder of the structure be repaired in a manner that will last, that will abide.

So it is with the Christian life. Ascesis begins in the heart: in obediently reorienting the heart toward the Kingdom, in understanding its enemies and the passions that lay buried within it, and coming to combat and defeat them by Christ’s power.

The Christian engages in this action, not as a selfish pursuit aimed solely at the benefit of his own person, but because he knows that it is in the genuine ascesis of the heart that authentic Christian mission has its true foundations. Without it, he scrambles to aid a broken world while broken himself; he tries to offer healing of an ailment of which he suffers most of all. He can only be truly of aid, of genuine witness, when he learns to cry out to Christ, “You have come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief,” and from that cry works to live a sober, serious, authentic Christian life of struggle and growth.

Archimandrite Irinei

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For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking manner of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring….. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, though they are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, yet they are restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.

Epistle to Diognetus, by anonymous 1st or 2nd century writer

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Prayer is a divine gift and blessed grace. The heart which God fashioned from the dust, into which He has breathed His own breath, is called beyond the confines of mere materiality. The mystery of the separation between Creator and creature is overcome, as the maker and Fashioner of the human heart calls it to Himself.

When the heart responds to this call and is drawn up into God, it finds its true home, peace, and joy. This is as St. Seraphim of Sarov reminded his hearers: “When the mind and heart are united in prayer and the soul’s thoughts are not dispersed, the heart is warmed by spiritual warmth in which the light of Christ shines, making the whole inner man peaceful and joyous. We should thank the Lord for everything and give ourselves up to His will; we should likewise offer Him all our thoughts, words, and actions, and strive to make everything serve only His good pleasure.

From the book “The beginnings of a Life of Prayer” by Archimandrite Irenei

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If God had not been incarnate upon earth, if He had not made us godly, if He had not taught us in His Own person how to live, what to hope for and expect, if He had not pointed out to us another perfect and eternal life, if He had not suffered and died and risen from the dead—then we should still have had some reason to live, as we all now live—that is to mostly lead a carnal, earthly life.

But, now, we ought to meditate upon higher things, and count all earthly things but dung, for, everything earthly is nothing, in comparison with heavenly things.

Meanwhile, the Devil, the father of lies, in spite of the Saviour’s teaching and His spirit, teaches us to attach ourselves to earthly goods, and forcibly nails our sensual heart to them.

The heart naturally seeks happiness—and the Devil gives a false direction to this tendency, and allures it by earthly happiness, that is—by riches, honours, splendour of dress, furniture, silver, equipages, gardens and various amusements.

+ St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ

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The Christian today- not unlike the Christians of other eras, but in ways that are continually “updated” as society carries on- is not told simply that he mustn’t fight the passions, that he mustn’t battle the devil: he is told that the passions are unreal and the devil does not exist. He is told that ascesis is unnatural, that spiritual warfare is delusional. He is told that judgment is oppressive and the desire to become something defined by another (even God!) is psychologically unhealthy. He is told that to believe in the Church’s tradition is simplistic, pietistic adherence to the past; that he had better “think for himself.”

He is told, in other words, that the very arena of the spiritual contest is unreal, and that his work is foolishness. He is made to believe that the only way it can be defended at all in modern society is for it to be conformed to society’s views.

He is told, we might say, precisely what the devil would want him to be told.

The Christian today, then, is charged with a mission: to reclaim from this disastrous situation the right contours of truth and reality, and to live them fully despite the world’s constant insistence to do otherwise. The Christian must reclaim, firstly in himself (this, the ascetical struggle), and then with an eye to and for those around him, the right vision of our condition in this life and our approach to it.

How are we to do this? He only way is by renewing in ourselves the ascetical vision handed on to us in the Church, and by conforming ourselves to the life that binds us to the wellspring of life, Christ Himself. Given the degree to which the world etches itself into our minds and hearts, this means at a basic and practical level that we must struggle inwardly to reclaim that which the Church unfailingly provides, so that our struggle is built up by the true bulwark of the Faith.

(From the book, “The beginnings of a life of Prayer”, by Archimandrite Irinei)

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For many, if not the majority of Orthodox Christians, Lent consists of a limited number of formal, predominantly negative, rules and prescriptions: abstention from certain food, dancing, perhaps movies. Such is the degree of our alienation from the real spirit of the Church that it is almost impossible for us to understand that there is “something else” in Lent- something without which all these prescriptions lose much of their meaning. This “something else” can best be described as an “atmosphere”, a “climate” into which one enters, as first of all a state of mind, soul, and spirit which for seven weeks permeates our entire life. Let us stress once more that the purpose of Lent is not to force upon us a few formal obligations, but to “soften” our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden “thirst and hunger” for communion with God.

(From the Book “Great Lent” by Fr Alexander Schmemann)

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Despondency is the worst thing. It is a snare set by Satan to make a person lose his appetite for spiritual things and to bring him into a state of despair, inactivity and negligence. In this state a person is unable to do anything and rendered useless. The person says, “I am sinful and wretched,… I didn’t do this, I didn’t do that… I should have done that then, now it’s too late, nothing can be done… I’ve wasted my life…” He is brought into a sense of inferiority and consumed by fruitless self-reproach. Do you know what a destructive thing that is? It is pseudo-humility.

Such a person reaches a point where he doesn’t even want to receive Communion because he regards himself as unworthy of everything. This is a snare set by Satan so that a person will lose his hope in God’s love. All this is quite terrible and contrary to the Spirit of God.

I, too, think that I am sinful and that I am not living as I should. Nevertheless, I make whatever distresses me into prayer. I do not shut it up inside myself. I go to my spiritual father and confess it and it is finished and done with. Don’t let’s go back and recriminate and say what we didn’t do. What is important is what we will do now, from this moment onwards- as St Paul says, forgetting the things that are behind and stretching forth to the things that are before us. [Phil. 3:14]

(St Porphyrios)

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“Christians, have we understood the great responsibility that we have taken on before God through baptism? Have we come to know that we must conduct ourselves as children of God, that we must align our will with the will of God, that we must remain free from sin, that we must love God with all our hearts and always patiently await union with Him? Have we thought about the fact that our heart should be so filled with love that it should overflow to our neighbour? Do we have the feeling that we must become holy and perfect, children of God and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven? We must struggle for this, so that we may not be shown unworthy and rejected. Let none of us lose our boldness, nor neglect our duties, nor be afraid of the difficulties of spiritual struggle. For we have God as a helper, who strengthens us in the difficult path of virtue.”

(+ St. Nektarius of Aegina )

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Remember that the Lord is in every Christian. When your neighbour comes to you, always have great respect for him, because the Lord is in him, and often expresses His will through him. “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Therefore, do not grudge anything to your brother, but do unto him as unto the Lord; especially as you do not know in whom the Lord will come and visit you; be impartial to all, be kind to all, sincere and hospitable. Remember that sometimes God speaks even through unbelievers, or disposes their hearts towards us, as it happened in Egypt when the Lord gave Joseph favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison. (Gen. 39:21)

(St John of Kronstadt)

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“Let us go forth in peace” is the last commandment of the Liturgy. What does it mean? It means, surely, that the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy is not an end but a beginning. Those words, “Let us go forth in peace,” are not merely a comforting epilogue. They are a call to serve and bear witness. In effect, those words, “Let us go forth in peace,” mean the Liturgy is over, the liturgy after the Liturgy is about to begin.

This, then, is the aim of the Liturgy: that we should return to the world with the doors of our perceptions cleansed. We should return to the world after the Liturgy, seeing Christ in every human person, especially in those who suffer. In the words of Father Alexander Schmemann, the Christian is the one who wherever he or she looks, everywhere sees Christ and rejoices in him. We are to go out, then, from the Liturgy and see Christ everywhere.”

(Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia)

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How to Come to Know God

If a person wants to get an idea about the pyramids of Egypt, he must either trust those who have been in immediate proximity to the pyramids, or he must get next to them himself. There is no third option. In the same way a person can get an impression of God: He must either trust those who have stood and stand in immediate proximity to God, or he must take pains to come into such proximity himself.

(St. Nicholas of Serbia, Thoughts on Good and Evil)

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As it is impossible to verbally describe the sweetness of honey to one who has never tasted honey, so the goodness of God cannot be clearly communicated by way of teaching if we ourselves are not able to penetrate into the goodness of the Lord by our own experience.

(St. Basil the Great, Conversations on the Psalms, 29)

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Many rich and powerful men would pay dearly to see the Lord or His Most Pure Mother, but God does not appear in riches, but in the humble heart… We need neither money nor reputation to come to know God, but only humility.

(St. Silouan the Athonite, Writings, I.11,21)

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No matter how much we may study, it is not possible to come to know God unless we live according to His commandments, for God is not known by science, but by the Holy Spirit. Many philosophers and learned men came to the belief that God exists, but they did not know God. It is one thing to belief that God exists and another to know Him. If someone has come to know God by the Holy Spirit, his soul will burn with love for God day and night, and his soul cannot be bound to any earthly thing.

(St. Silouan the Athonite, Writings, VIII.3)

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Don’t you see that this is why we make no progress? We remain all the time against one another, grinding one another down. Because each considers himself right and excuses himself, all while keeping none of the commandments yet expecting his neighbour to keep the lot! How did that holy Spiritual Father reply when asked, “What do you find most important in the spiritual life, Father?” He replied, “In everything to blame oneself.” Everywhere we find the Fathers kept this rule, relating everything to God, even the slightest things, and they found peace.

But someone will say, “Suppose a brother troubles me and I examine myself and find that I have not given him any cause, how can I accuse myself?” If a man really examines himself, in the fear of God, he will usually find that he has given cause for offense, either by deed or word or by his bearing. But if, in scrutinizing himself, as I said, he sees that he has given no cause in any of these ways at that moment, it is likely that at another time he has offended him either in the same circumstances or in others, or perhaps he has offended another brother and he would suffer on that account or for some other wrong doing. If, as I was saying, he examines himself in the fear of God and searches diligently his own conscience, he will always find cause for accusing himself. Again there is the case of a man minding his own business, sitting at peace and quiet, and when a brother comes up and says an annoying word to him he is put out by it. And from the circumstances he thinks he is justifiably angered, and he speaks against the one who troubled him, saying, “If he had not come and spoken to me and annoyed me I should not have been at fault.” This is a delusion, this is false reasoning! For it was not the one who spoke that put him in a bad mood. He only showed that it already existed in him, so that he could, if he chose, make reparation for his fault. But the man referred to above is like clean-looking winter wheat, externally good and ready for use, but when someone crushes it, its corruption is revealed. He was sitting at peace, as we were saying, but he had his anger inside him and he did not know it. One word to him from the other and the corruption hidden inside him leapt out. If, therefore, he were ready to ask forgiveness and humbled himself before that brother, he would be cleansed and would advance in wisdom and see that he ought rather to thank the brother who had been an occasion of spiritual help to him.

St Dorotheos of Gaza

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Lest us surrender ourselves wholly to the will of God. Let us devote ourselves wholeheartedly to doing the will of God. With unceasing prayer, let us ask God for the gift of carrying out His will, and also for the gift whereby the will of God may always be welcomed by us. Whoever surrenders himself to the will of God finds that God is with him inseparably. This is felt and experienced and the truth of it is attested by every soldier of Christ who fights lawfully, by every athlete and combatant who is guided by the Gospel.

Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov

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I entreat you not to leave your heart unguarded, so long as you are in the body. Just as the farmer cannot feel confident about the crop growing in his fields, because he does not know what will happen to it before it is stored away in the granary, so a man should not leave his heart unguarded so long as he still has breath in his nostrils. Up to his last breath he cannot know what passion will attack him; so as long as he breathes, therefore, he must not leave his heart unguarded, but should at every moment pray to God for His help and mercy.

He who receives no help when at war should feel no confidence when at peace.

Be attentive to yourself, so that nothing destructive can separate you from the love of God. Guard your heart, and do not grow listless and say: “How can I guard it, since I am a sinner?” For when a man abandons his sins and returns to God, his repentance regenerates him and renews him entirely.

St Isaiah the solitary, Philokalia

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The most precious thing in the world is to know God and understand His will, even if only dimly. The soul that has come to know God should in all things submit to His will, and live before Him in awe and love: in love, because the Lord is love; in awe, because we must go in fear of grieving God by some evil thought….

The best thing of all is to surrender to God’s will, and bear affliction with confidence in God. The Lord seeing our affliction will never give us too much to bear. If we seem to ourselves to be greatly afflicted, it means that we have not surrendered to the will of God….

Look at the man who likes to have his own way. His soul is never at peace. He is always discontented- this is not right, this is not as it should be. But the man who is entirely given over to the will of God can pray with a pure mind. His soul loves the Lord, and he finds everything pleasant and agreeable…

The man who has come to know the love of God himself loves the whole world and never murmurs at his fate, for temporary affliction endured for God’s sake is a means to eternal joy.

The soul that is not humble and has not surrendered herself to the will of God cannot come to know anything, but flits from one idea to another and so never prays with an undistracted mind, or glorifies the majesty of God.

St Silouan

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How mistaken are those people who seek happiness outside of themselves, in foreign lands and journeys, in riches and glory, in great possessions and pleasures, in diversions and vain things, which have a bitter end! In the same thing to construct the tower of happiness outside of ourselves as it is to build a house in a place that is consistently shaken by earthquakes. Happiness is found within ourselves, and blessed is the man who has understood this. Happiness is a pure heart, for such a heart becomes the throne of God. Thus says Christ of those who have pure hearts: “I will visit them, and will walk in them, and I will be a God to them, and they will be my people.” (II Cor. 6:16) What can be lacking to them? Nothing, nothing at all! For they have the greatest good in their hearts: God Himself!

St. Nektarios of Aegina, Path to Happiness

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The soul that loves God has its rest in God and in God alone. In all the paths that men walk in in the world, they do not attain peace until they draw nigh to hope in God.

St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 56, 89

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There is no need for much speaking; but stretch out your hands and say, “Lord, as You wish and as You know best, have mercy on me.” And if the warfare grows fierce, say “Lord, help.” God knows what is best for us and He is merciful to us.

Macarius the Great

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Rabbi Shelomo asked: “What is the worst thing the evil urge can achieve?” And he answered: “To make us forget that we are each the child of a king.”

(A Jewish saying quoted by bishop Kallistos Ware)

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A soul filled with thoughts of sensual desire and hatred is unpurified. If we detect any trace of hatred in our heart against any man whatsoever for committing any fault, we are utterly estranged from love of God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man. * He who loves Me, says the Lord, will keep my commandments; and “this is my commandment, that you love one another”. Thus he who does not love his neighbour fails to keep the commandment, and so cannot love the Lord. * Blessed is he who can love all men equally. * Blessed is he who is not attached to anything transitory or corruptible. * Blessed is the intellect that transcends all sensible objects and ceaselessly delights in divine beauty. * If you make provision for the desires of the flesh and bear a grudge against your neighbour on account of something transitory, you worship the creature instead of the Creature.

St Maximos the Confessor

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A temptation came upon you from your brother, and the hurt led you to hate. Do not be overcome with hate but overcome hate with love. You will prevail in this way: pray for him sincerely to God, accept his apology, or else come up with an apology for him yourself, think of yourself as the cause of the temptation, and be patient until the cloud has passed by.

A patient man is rich in prudence, because he refers every happening to its end, and while waiting for it he puts up with difficulties. “And the end is everlasting life”, (Romans 6:22) according to the divine apostle; “and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:13)

The man who still loves empty fame, or is attached so some material object, is naturally vexed with people on account of transitory things, or harbours rancour or hatred against them, or is a slave to shameful thoughts. Such things are quite foreign to the soul that loves God.

The person who truly wants to be healed is he who does not refuse treatment. This treatment consists of the pain and distress brought on by various misfortunes. He who refuses them does not realize what they accomplish in this world or what he will gain from them when he departs this life.

Food was created for two reasons, for nourishment and for healing. Therefore those who take it for any other reason misuse what has been given for their use and are condemned for their luxury. And as with everything else, misuse is sin.

St Maximus the Confessor

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Orthodox spirituality is Christ-centred and Church-centred. This means that man is sanctified and saved through the God-man Christ, living within the Church which is the blessed Body of Christ. Christ does not exist outside of the Holy Trinity and outside of the Church. For this reason, living within the Church, which is an infirmary and hospital, we can be cured.

Participating in the uncreated Grace of God and experiencing ecclesiastical life are effected through the Sacraments and ascetic practice. Through the Sacraments, the uncreated Grace and Energy of God enters our heart; through ascetic practice on the one hand, we prepare the way of God’s Grace to act therapeutically and redemptively within our heart; on the other hand we safeguard Divine Grace which we received through the Sacraments.

… Our rebirth is accomplished in the Sacraments; however our co-operation (synergy) is also needed. God’s energy is offered through the Sacraments: Baptism gives man his identity with and hypostasis in Christ; Chrismation perfects the newly-born, granting him inner direction; Holy Eucharist maintains and keeps the vitality and well-being that man has received.

If the energy of God is offered through the Sacraments, synergy- the response to this great gift- is a matter of our own eagerness and indulgence. Thus God operates and man co-operates. Our own ascetic endeavour is, then, required so as to safeguard Divine Grace…

Baptism is not enough, one must observe the commandments of God, in other words, practice the ascetic life. The ascetic life, though, is not solely for monks, but it is the keeping of the commandments by all followers of Christ. Our endeavour to put into practice God’s commandments constitutes asceticism in Christ. After His resurrection Christ said to His disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20). So Baptism does not suffice to make man a disciple of the Gospel, the keeping of the commandments of Christ is also necessary.

It is interesting to note the stance of St Gregory Palamas to two of the heretical claims of his era. Like all Fathers of the Church, St Gregory did not overrate one part of the truth at the expense of another, but rather maintained a spiritual balance, precisely because he was renewed by the Holy Spirit. The first claim was expressed by the Massalians, ancient heretics whose ideas were revived during the time of St Gregory. According to their teaching, the Sacraments of the Church are not of such great importance for man’s salvation. They claimed that that which unites a person with God is the so called noetic prayer. It is prayer which cleanses man and accomplishes his divination (theosis)- not the sacramental life. The second heretical claim came primarily from Western Christendom, as expressed by the philosopher Barlaam. Barlaam greatly emphasized the sacramental life of the Church at the expense of the hesychastic life. He despised hesychasm and everything having to do with noetic prayer. Barlaam did speak also of prayer but in an abstract and reflective manner. St Gregory undertook a comparable struggle against both heretical claims. He maintained, just as the Church does, that the excessive emphasis on the part of one claim and the undervaluation on the part of the second, regarding the truth, constitutes a divergence from Orthodox life and consequently distances a man from salvation. He stressed that for a person to be cured (and consequently for his salvation) a combination of both the Sacramental and ascetic life is needed.

From the Book “Orthodox Spirituality” by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos

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Orthodox Christianity views marriage as essentially a Christian vocation, a union in and with Christ. The ultimate end of that vocation is the same as that of monasticism: theosis or eternal participation in the life of God. Like monasticism, Christian marriage requires a continual askesis: a spiritual struggle, grounded in ongoing repentance. To quote a modern Orthodox theologian, “True virginity and true marriage are reached by a common road: the self denial of the cross, and ascetic self-offering.” This way of the Cross is symbolised in the Orthodox marriage ceremony by the nuptial crowns, which are crowns of victory but also crowns of martyrdom, of saving witness one to the other and to the world…

Christian marriage engages the couple in ceaseless spiritual warfare at every level of their common life. Through continual repentance and the seeking of forgiveness, obstinate pride resolves into tender affection, and self-centred lust into self-sacrificing devotion. Beyond that, however, the couple’s struggle unites them in a common “priestly” ministry, as they offer themselves and each other to God as a “sacrifice of praise.” The telos or ultimate end of conjugal union, then, is the salvation of the other, the beloved, with whom one is eternally untied in a covenant bond of faithfulness and self-giving love.

Fr John Breck

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God’s eternal Son became man, and something happened to change the whole world. He is not just a new man, a new specimen of our species. He is the new man, God’s own man to produce new men- men and women with a new mind and a new heart, ready to go God’s way at whatever cost to themselves. New persons in Christ are like Christ Himself, new people with a whole new attitude toward life. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation- the old is past and gone, and everything is become fresh and new.”

As C.S Lewis wrote in his book, Beyond Personality, “Mere improvement is no redemption, though redemption always improves even here and now, and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became Man to turn creatures into sons; not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man.

Fr Anthony Coniaris

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May the Lord give you the blessing of a strong desire to stand inwardly before God. Seek and you will find. Seek God: such is the unalterable rule for all spiritual advancement. Nothing comes without effort. The help of God is always ready and always near, but is only given to those who seek and work, and only to those seekers who, after putting all their own powers to the test, then cry out with all their heart: Lord, help us. So long as you hold on to even a little hope of achieving something by your own powers, the Lord does not interfere. It is as though He says: “You hope to succeed by yourself- Very well, go on trying! But however long you try you will achieve nothing.” May the Lord give you a contrite spirit, a humble and a contrite heart

St Theophan the recluse, quoted in the book, “the Art of Prayer”

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… for it is written, “An angry man is not dignified”

Prov. 11:25 LXX

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If therefore you desire to attain perfection and rightly to pursue the spiritual way, you should make yourself a stranger to all sinful anger and wrath. Listen to what St Paul enjoins: “Rid yourselves of all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking and all malice”(Eph.4:31). In saying “all” he leaves no excuse for regarding any anger as necessary or reasonable. If you want to correct your brother when he is doing wrong or to punish him, you must try to keep yourself calm; otherwise you yourself may catch the sickness you are seeking to cure and you may find that the words of the Gospel now apply to you: “Physician, heal yourself” (Luke 4:23), or, “Why do you look at the speck of dust in your brother’s eye, and not notice the rafter in your own eye?” (Mat. 7:3).

No matter what provokes it, anger blinds the soul’s eyes, preventing it from seeing the Sun of righteousness. Leaves, whether gold or lead, placed over the eyes, obstruct the sight equally, for the value of gold does not affect the blindness it produces. Similarly, anger, whether reasonable or unreasonable, obstructs our spiritual vision. Our incensive power can be used in a way that is according to nature only when turned against our own impassioned or self-indulgent thoughts. This is what the Prophet teaches us when he says: “Be angry and do not sin” (Psalm 4:4 LXX) – that is, be angry with your own passions and with your malicious thoughts, and do not sin by carrying out their suggestions. What follows clearly confirms this interpretation: “As you lie in bed, repent of what you say in your heart” (Psalm 4:4 LXX)- that is, when malicious thoughts enter your heart, expel them with anger, and then turn to compunction and repentance as if your soul were resting in a bed of stillness.

St John Cassian, Philokalia

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The Christian who has true humility realizes that God uses others to help clarify His will for each person. St Dorotheos wisely asks, “For how can we know the will of God or seek it completely if we believe only in ourselves and hold onto our own will?” When seeking God’s will we must not only turn to the Scriptures and the writings of the Holy Fathers, but we must also ask the advice of those whose experiences in the faith have taught them so much. To lean on one’s own understanding without seeking counsel is to fall into the devil’s hands: “Such people the devil likes, and he always rejoices over them, the ungoverned, those who are not subject to one who has power, under God, to help them and to give them a hand.” In short, if in humility we ask for another’s help, we allow ourselves to receive both the counsel and the encouragement needed to live the Christian life.

David Beck

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The heart has a lot of power. All of its willpower must be directed towards spiritual life. We should know that it overflows with joy for everything it is doing, only when it is done out of gratefulness and love and not as an obligation or duty…. There is great joy, when there is a desire for self-sacrifice.

Fr Paisios

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Our Lord’s message demands of us change. Throughout the Gospels Jesus makes it clear that those who will follow Him are going to have to change the way they live; He will not let them follow Him and remain as they were. He is very clear that He is God, and as God He intends to make demands on His followers. They cannot follow Him and merely add Him to their life as it already is; in following Him the very structure and fabric of their life will be challenged and changed….

We need to love God more than anything or anyone. The love of God must consume our souls, so that we can say with the psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but You?… And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You… My flesh and my heart fail;… but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Ps 73:25-26)

Fr John Mack

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Love every man as yourself- that is, do not wish him anything that you do not wish for yourself; think, feel, for him, just as you would think and feel for your own self; do not wish to see in him anything that you do not wish to see in yourself; do not let your memory cherish any evil done to you by others, just as you would wish that the evil done by yourself should be forgotten by others; do not deliberately imagine in yourself or in others anything wicked or impure; believe others to be as well-disposed as yourself, unless you see clearly that they are ill-disposed; do unto them as you would to yourself, and not otherwise, and you will find in your heart great peace and blessedness. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.

To love your neighbour as yourself, to sympathize with him in his joy and his sorrow, to feed, to clothe him, if he is in need of food and clothing; to breathe, so to say, the same air with him- look upon all this as the same thing as feeding and warming yourself, and do not count these as virtues or as works of love to your neighbour, lest you grow proud of them. For we are members of one another.

St John of Kronstadt

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The wreaths, or wedding crowns, are symbols of Christ’s presence. More specifically, they are symbols of martyrdom. Husband and wife wear crowns to show that they are ready to become martyrs for Christ. To say that “I am married” means that I live and die for Christ. “I am married” means that I desire and thirst for Christ. Crowns are also signs of royalty, and thus husband and wife are king and queen, and their home is a kingdom, a kingdom of the Church, and extension of the Church. The wreaths also symbolize the final victory which will be attained in the kingdom of heaven. When the priest takes the wreaths he says to Christ, “Take their crowns to your kingdom.” And so marriage is a road: it starts out from earth and ends in heaven. It is a joining together, a bond with Christ, who assures us that He will lead us to heaven, to be with Him always. Marriage is a bridge leading from earth to heaven. It is as if the sacrament is saying: “Above and beyond love, above and beyond your husband, your wife, above the everyday events, remember that you are destined for heaven, that you have set out on a road which will take you there without fail.” The bride and the groom give their hands to one another, and the priest takes hold of them both, and leads them round the table, dancing and singing. Marriage is a movement, a progression, a journey which will end in heaven, in eternity.

Fr Aimilianos

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May God grant us grace to learn obedience and to see its fruits. May God grant us the grace to be obedient children to our father confessor.

It is a very difficult thing to be a father confessor today. Many times father confessors don’t say anything, because they know it will not be received. They’re quiet, even though they know the medicine that will heal the soul, because they know there is no spirit of obedience. And so many people are not healed because they are not obedient. The spiritual fathers and the father confessors weep over the obstinate hearts of their children. They weep over children who fight back and argue, instead of saying, “With your blessing.”

May our cold obstinate hearts break. May we face what is being said, and in honesty admit that we are rebellious. And may we come to ourselves and be willing to obey, so that we will live to see the miracles of obedience- the flowering of our cold hearts and the bearing of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

Fr. John Mack

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Doing God’s work at home is the same for clergy and laity. It consists in parents loving each other and caring for their children in the obvious ways: spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. It consists in children honouring their parents with proper obedience, respect and care.

The first of one’s neighbours to be loved are the members of one’s own natural household. “Charity begins in the home” is an apostolic teaching. “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim 5:8).

While some who call themselves Christians may sin by failing to care for their own flesh and blood- being rude and negligent at home while acting politely and kindly to those outside- others may sin by idolizing their families- including their countries, nations, and churches- and by failing to care seriously for anyone other than “their own.” Such communities can assume ultimate value in people’s lives and become objects of idolatrous worship. It is imperative to remember the radical teaching of Christ that “he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Mat 10:37-38).

Fr Thomas Hopko

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What was Jesus doing before He was transfigured? Luke 9:28-29 says that he went up on the mountain to pray, and as He was praying, He was transfigured before them. St Gregory Palamas says that Jesus did not need to pray to be transfigured, because Jesus was God. We are not told that Jesus prayed because it was necessary for Him. We are told that the Transfiguration took place while He was praying because it is necessary for us. If we wish to see the things of heaven, then we must be men and women who pray. And not just men and women who pray say 5 minutes of prayer in the morning and then go on with the rest of our life until we’re beat and tired, and then say 5 minutes of prayer before we fall back into bed. That’s not what we mean. St Paul says, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Every second of the day must be prayer. You can receive Holy Communion without tasting that the Lord is good, because if you receive Holy Communion without prayer, then your body and soul have not received the grace of God. To taste heavenly food, we must pray. To hear angels, we must pray. To feel the presence of God and the saints, we must pray. We must work and labour in prayer so that we can fulfil the purpose of our existence.

Fr John Mack

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Sometimes God allows for a relative or a fellow worker to cause us problems in order to exercise our patience and humbleness; however, instead of being grateful for the chance God gives us, we react and refuse to be cured. It is like refusing to pay the doctor who is giving us a shot when we are sick.

Our duty and concern must be how to please God and our fellow man; we should not be preoccupied with our needs, as God will take care of them. There is a silent spiritual agreement between God and man. He will look after us, while we will concentrate on how to live our lives according to His will. “Cast all your anxieties on Him, for he cares for you.”

Father Paisios of Mount Athos

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The devil cunningly induces us- instead of arousing us against himself- to notice our neighbours’ sins, to make us spiteful and angry with others, and to awaken our contempt towards them, thus keeping us in enmity with them, and with the Lord God Himself. Therefore, we must despise the sins themselves, and not our brother, who commits them at the devil’s prompting, through infirmity and habit; we must pity him, and gently and lovingly instruct him, as one who forgets himself, or who is sick, as a prisoner and the slave of his sin.

St John of Kronstadt

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The righteous Christian does not practice good acts for his own benefit, i.e. in order to be rewarded or to avoid hell and gain paradise, but rather because he prefers good to evil. Everything else is a natural consequence of the good that fills our soul without having asked for it. This way, good has dignity; otherwise, it originates from the cheap attitude of “give and take.”

Fr Paisios

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Doing the will of God is a discipline in the best sense of the word. It is also a test of our loyalty, of our fidelity to Christ. It is by doing in every detail, at every moment, to the utmost of our power, as perfectly as we can, with the greatest moral integrity, using our intelligence, our imagination, our will, our skill, our experience, that we can gradually learn to be strictly, earnestly obedient to the Lord God. Unless we do this our discipleship is an illusion. Αnd if our life of discipline is a set of self-imposed rules in which we delight, which makes us proud and self-satisfied, it will leave us nowhere, because the essential momentum of our discipleship is the ability in this process of silence and listening, to reject our self, to allow the Lord Christ to be our mind, our will and our heart. Unless we renounce ourselves and accept his life in place of our life, unless we aim at what St Paul defines as “it is no longer I but Christ who lives in me”, we shall never be either disciplined or disciples.”

Archbishop Anthony Bloom

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Value by its effects that greatest miracle of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, manifested when we partake with faith of his divine sacraments- Holy Communion. What is this miracle? The access of peace and life to your heart, to a heart killed by sin, which is so apparent from the uneasiness of heart and spiritual deadness that often precedes Communion. Never consider it from habit as anything ordinary or unimportant: by such thoughts you will incur the wrath of God, and you will not enjoy peace nor feel renewed life after Communion. By having lively and heart-felt gratitude for the holy and life-giving sacrament you will obtain Life from the Lord, and your faith will increase more and more.

St John of Konstadt

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A psychologist once asked 3,000 persons, “What are you living for?” He was startled to find that most of them were simply enduring the present while they waited for something better in the future. Actors doing small parts were waiting for the “big chance”. People in business were thinking of their present jobs as drudgery, a mere marking of time, until fate opened the door to something better. One middle aged mother said, “I only hope that my nerves can stand the ordeal until my husband retires and the children get homes of their own, and then I can get a little rest.” When this all happened, this same mother was a very unhappy person. She looked back to the time when she was busy and the house full of children as the happiest period of her life… “Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2) Now– not tomorrow– is the time to live. Now– not tomorrow– is the time to be saved, to be made whole. Our time on earth is limited. Every moment is unique and unrepeatable. Tomorrow is not ours, today is. Now is the time to do the compassionate act. Now is the time to say the word of forgiveness– before our time runs out. Now is the most glorious period of life. God’s time is always now.

Fr Anthony Coniaris

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The Lord, before His incarnation, let man experience all the bitterness of sin, all his powerlessness to eradicate it; and when all longed for a deliverer, then He appeared, the all-wise and all-powerful healer and helper. When men hungered and thirsted after righteousness as it grew weaker, then the everlasting righteousness came…. This is indeed the miracle of miracles; this reveals the infinite mercy, wisdom, and omnipotence of the Lord towards His creatures, that He Himself, the Lord of all, the infinite, the unbounded, was pleased and was able to become man that we might be saved, that the Word, by whom all things were made, was made flesh and dwelt among us, living with men, and made like unto man in everything, sin alone excepted.

St John of Kronstadt

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You keep writing about your troubles and your inner disorder. Realise that it cannot be otherwise in the temporal life, and do not try to find out from whom and through whom they come, for they do not come without God’s permission. If not even a hair of our head will perish, how much more sure is God’s protection of man. It is also said: “By your endurance you will gain your lives.” (Luke 21:18-19) I have already written to you before that there is just one way to deal with sorrows: prayer and patience. At a time of trouble wait for peace, and when there is peace prepare for trouble. In this temporal life peaceful and troubled times alternate. Even the holy men of God were not free from these changes. But you want to find some new path in order to escape hard experiences. This cannot be. You haven’t had abuse hurled at you or been struck on the cheeks, have you? Just remember the patience of the God incarnate: the blows on the cheeks, the hitting on the head with a stick, the spitting in his face and many kinds of ridicule. And he endured all this for the sake of our salvation. But we do not want, for the sake of our own salvation, to suffer even small annoyances.

Father John, a Russian monk

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Hallowed Be Thy Name. We sanctify the name of the Father in grace who is in heaven by mortifying earthly lust, of course, and by purifying ourselves from corrupting passions, since sanctification is the total immobility and mortification of sensual lust. Arrived at that point, we quiet down the indecent howling of anger which no longer has, to excite it and persuade it to be carried over to familiar pleasures, the lust which is already mortified by a holiness conformed to reason. Indeed, anger, as a natural ally of lust, ceases to rage once it sees that lust is mortified.

Maximus the Confessor, Commentary on the Our Father

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A basic condition for the spiritual life is that we should understand that, on our own, we can do absolutely nothing. No matter how hard we try, the spiritual life is something that someone else gives to us. And the “someone else” is the Spirit of God, the Comforter, the “treasury of good things and the giver of life”, the treasury from which all the riches of spirituality come forth, the source from which the spiritual life emerges and overflows. Of course, sometimes we get confused, and think that to be spiritual means to be a “good person”: not to steal, not to kill, not to go to bad places or with bad friends, to go to Church on Sunday, to read spiritual books, and so on. But no, this is not the spiritual life. A spiritual person, a true Christian, is someone whose entire life is sworn to God. Initially by means of his baptism, and later, in his heart, such a person swears an oath to God, to live for God, and to remain with God forever. A spiritual person is an athlete who has burst into life, who stands out from the crowds of human beings, and runs with all the speed of his soul to heaven. A spiritual person is one who with shining eyes and chest thrust forward, has set his course and races to heaven. He is not a “good man”. A spiritual person knows that, in order to succeed, he needs strong wings: the wings of the Holy Spirit.A spiritual person must therefore do everything possible to attract, to win over, the Spirit of God, because only the Holy Spirit, God himself, has the gifts of the spiritual life. According to St Gregory of Nyssa, the “distribution of the royal gifts” of the Holy Spirit takes place in the Church through the Sacraments.

Fr Aimilianos of Simonopetra

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Do not say: “I do not know what is right, therefore I am not to blame when I fail to do it.” For if you did all the good about which you do know, what you should do next would then become clear to you, as if you were passing through a house from one room to another. It is not helpful to know what comes later before you have done what comes first. For knowledge without action “puffs up”, but “loves edifies”, because it “patiently accepts all things” (1 Cor. 8:1; 13:7).

Mark the Ascetic in Philokalia, volume 1

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St Luke tells us that the Transfiguration took place while Jesus was praying. Is it not in periods of prayer that we are most likely to witness the glory of God? Is it not prayer that produces an inner change in man which becomes reflected in a transfigured life?

Fr Anthony Coniaris

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St Silouan declared that the Spirit brought him through torments of doubt to the firm conviction that “Jesus Christ is God.” This Spirit, who bestows the gift of faith, fills every aspect of our life and leads us progressively toward the twin goals of Knowledge of God and Love of Enemies. If we can know anything at all of God, and even enter into the most intimate communion with Him, it is only because God grants us this mystical knowledge by His Spirit, who dwells within the temple of the heart. If we can love even our enemy, it is only with the compassion and mercy of God Himself, who infuses our heart with the transforming grace of the Spirit. This is a grace that lifts us above our passions- corrupted feelings of victimization and shame, of anxiety and defensive rage- and enables us, in the power of the Spirit, to embrace with love even those who hate us, who threaten us, and who, on a purely human level, inspire our contempt and loathing…One of the greatest and most illuminating gifts we receive from the Spirit is recognition and acceptance of the fact that we are often our own worst enemy. It is that burdensome fact that can lead us to make enemies even of those who are closest to us. Little irritations can transform an insignificant incident into a household drama that creates tension, alienation and rejection. The ascetic life is made up of struggles against just these kinds of temptations. There needs to be a change of heart that only God can accomplish. “The Lord’s love,” Silouan declares, “is made known in no other wise than through the Holy Spirit.”