Whenever we are filled with evil thoughts, we should throw the invocation of our Lord Jesus Christ in their midst. Then, as experience has taught us, we shall see them instantly dispersed like smoke in air. Once the intellect is left to itself again, we can renew our constant attentiveness and our invocation. Whenever we are distracted, we should act in this way.
Without temptations, pure souls are not known, virtue does not show, patience is not discernible. Without temptations, it is impossible for the soul to become healthy. They are the cleansing fire which makes the soul pure and bright.
My child, man's life is full of sorrow because he is in exile. Do not seek perfect rest. Since our Christ bore His Cross, we shall bear ours, too. If we endure all afflictions, we shall receive grace from the Lord. The Lord allows us to be tempted, so that He can test the zeal and love we have for Him. Therefore, patience is needed. Without patience a person does not obtain experience, acquire spiritual knowledge, or attain any measure of virtue and perfection.
Fire makes iron impossible to touch, and likewise frequent prayer renders the intellect more forceful in its warfare with the enemy. That is why the demons strive with all their strength to make us slothful in attentiveness to prayer, for they know that prayer is the intellect's invincible weapon against them.
The life of a man is leavened with afflictions and torments. When you see a little joy in your soul, know that it is a phone call telling you to endure the affliction that will come.
It is not the clever, the noble, the polished speakers, or the rich who win, but whoever is insulted and forebears, whoever is wronged and forgives, whoever is slandered and endures, whoever becomes a sponge and mops up whatever they might say to him. Such a person is cleansed and polished even more. He reaches great heights. He delights in the theoria of mysteries. And finally, it is he who is already inside paradise, while still in this life.
The grace of the priesthood is one thing, the grace of the great schema is another, the grace of the Mysteries is different, and the action of grace in ascesis is also different. They all spring from the same source, but each one differs from the other in eminence and glory. The grace of repentance, which acts in those who struggle, is a patristic inheritance. It is a divine transaction and exchange in which we give dust and receive heaven. We exchange matter for the Spirit. Every drop of sweat, every pain, every ascesis for God is an exchange.
Man's chief aim should be to find God. In finding God, he finds true happiness. The interior prayer we have been discussing [the Prayer of Jesus] leads man to Him. We can never thank God sufficiently for revealing Himself to us. We can never even thank Him enough for the other goods He bestows upon us. God need not have created man: He had hosts of angels. Yet He created man and countless marvelous things for him.
Watchfulness and the Jesus Prayer, as I have said, mutually reinforce each other, for close attentiveness goes with constant prayer, while prayer goes with close watchfulness and attentiveness of intellect.
Sacred Tradition is the very Church; without the Sacred Tradition the Church does not exist. Those who deny the Sacred Tradition deny the Church and the preaching of the Apostles. Before the writing of the Holy Scriptures, that is, of the sacred texts of the Gospels, the Acts and the Epistles of the Apostles, and before they were spread to the churches of the world, the Church was based on Sacred Tradition... The holy texts are in relation to Sacred Tradition what the part is to the whole.
First, one prays with the simplicity typical of beginners and by shedding copious tears. All this is due to the grace of God which is called purifying grace, which catches us like a fish-hook, and guides us towards repentance. For it is our God, Who is good in all and to all, Who finds us. He sees us. He invites Himself known to us first. Then we get to know Him, after He anoints us with His divine mercy. Hence, repentance, mourning, tears, and everything that happens to someone who repents, is all due to divine grace. This is purifying grace which cleanses man.
Do not love the world, all the deceit of the world, for it passes by quickly along with all its pleasures. Only he who does the will of God remains unto the ages.
Just as it is impossible to cross the sea without a boat, so it is impossible to repulse the provocation of an evil thought without invoking Jesus Christ.
The heart which is constantly guarded, and is not allowed to receive the forms, images and fantasies of the dark and evil spirits, is conditioned by nature to give birth from within itself to thoughts filled with light. For just as coal engenders a flame, or a flame lights a candle, so will God, who from our baptism dwells in our heart, kindle our mind to contemplation when He finds it free from the winds of evil and protected by the guarding of the intellect.
