God in His mercy gave us the Holy Scriptures that we might read them, and reading them we might fulfill what is sent by God to man, revealing His Holy Will and teaching us how to live. Consider with what attention and willingness that we ought to read God's letter to us. If an earthly king...wrote to you a letter, would you not read it with great joy? Certainly, with great rejoicing and careful attention. The King of Heaven has sent a letter to you, an earthly and mortal man; yet you almost despise such a gift, so priceless a treasure. Whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Him self is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking with Him. God speaks to man, the King of Heaven talks with the corruptible creature, the Lord holds converse with the servant. What can be more pleasant... more instructive?
Do we forgive our neighbors their trespasses? God also forgives us in His mercy. Do we refuse to forgive? God, too, will refuse to forgive us. As we treat our neighbors, so also does God treat us. The forgiveness, then, of your sins or unforgiveness, and hence also your salvation or destruction, depend on you yourself, man. For without forgiveness of sins there is no salvation. You can see for yourself how terrible it is.
You have no peace from thoughts, which impel you to trouble others, and in turn to be troubled by others. But know, my brother, that if we offend by word or deed, we are thereby ourselves offended a hundredfold. Be longsuffering in all things and refrain from letting your own will enter into anything. Carefully examine your thoughts lest they infect your heart with deadly poison (ill temper) and make you take a gnat for a camel, a pebble for a cliff, and lest you become like a man who has a beam in his own eye but beholds the mote in the eye of another.
Silence of lips is better and more wonderful than any edifying conversation. Strive to acquire humility and submissiveness. Never insist that anything should be according to your will, for this gives birth to anger. Do not judge or humiliate anyone, for this gives birth to anger. Do not judge or humiliate anyone, for this exhausts the heart and blinds the mind, and thereon leads to negligence and makes the heart unfeeling.
St. John Chrysostom, in considering the misfortune both of parents that neglect the good upbringing of their children and of the children not well brought up, says this, 'Parents that neglect to bring up their children as Christians, are most heinous murderers of children' (Homily 3, 'Against Those that Slander the Monastic Life '). For child-killers separate the body from the soul, but these parents cast them both soul and body info fiery Gehenna. It is impossible to escape from the former death according to natural law, but it would be possible to escape from the latter death were the negligence of the parents not to blame for it. Moreover, once it comes, the Resurrection is able to abolish bodily death, but nothing can overturn spiritual destruction. Therefore, parents, listen to the word of the Lord, 'Bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord' (Eph. 6:4).
Smoke from wood kindling a fire troubles the eyes; but then the fire gives them light and gladdens them. Similarly, unceasing attentiveness is irksome; but when, invoked in prayer, Jesus draws near, He illumines the heart; for remembrance of Him confers on us spiritual enlightenment and the highest of all blessings.
I think it best that a man should have a little bit of all the virtues. Therefore, get up early every day and acquire the beginning of every virtue and every commandment of God. Use great patience, with fear and long-suffering, in the love of God, with all the fervor of your soul and body. Exercise great humility, bear with interior distress; be vigilant and pray often with reverence and groaning, with purity of speech and control of your eyes. When you are despised do not get angry; be at peace, and do not render evil for evil. Do not pay attention to the faults of others, and do not try to compare yourself with others, knowing you are less than every created thing. Renounce everything material and that which is of the flesh. Live by the cross, in warfare, in poverty of spirit, in voluntary spiritual asceticism, in fasting, penitence and tears, in discernment, in purity of soul, taking hold of that which is good. Do your work in peace. Persevere in keeping vigil, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, and in sufferings. Shut yourself in a tomb as though you were already dead, so that at all times you will think death is near.
To act 'according to one’s strength' means to use a little less than necessary both of food, and drink, and sleep... As for food, restrain yourself when you wish to eat a little more, and in this way you will always make use of it moderately.
Many teach their children about worldly politics, others teach them to speak foreign languages: French, German, Italian, and in this spend no trifling sums. Others endeavor to teach them commerce and other arts. But hardly anyone teaches them to live in a Christian manner. However, without this, all learning is nothing and all wisdom is madness. For what does it profit a Christian to speak Italian, French and German, if he lives in an ungodly manner? What use is it to be skilled in commerce and the arts if one lacks the fear of God? God will not ask you whether you taught your children French, German or Italian or the politics of social life--but you will not escape divine reprobation for not having instilled goodness into them. I speak plainly but I tell the truth: if your children are bad, your grandchildren will be worse, and the evil will thus increase...and the root of all this is our thoroughly bad education.
One must train oneself in generous patience, so as to endure without complaint all that happens to us. We will possess patience when we accept everything that happens to us, both what is joyful and what is sad, without distinction, as from the hand of God.
Give thanks to God for all things, because thanksgiving is intercession before God for our weakness. Judge yourself always and in everything as a sinner and as one seduced - and so God will not judge you; be humble in everything and you will receive grace.
If a man purifies his heart and uproots from it all sin against the Lord; if he labors diligently to acquire Divine knowledge and succeeds in seeing with his mind that which is invisible to many, he must not through this exalt himself over others. Who among creatures is purer than an incorporeal being and who has more knowledge than an Angel? Yet, having exalted himself he was cast down from heaven like lightning. His pride was regarded by God as impurity.
If a king wanted to take possession of his enemy's city, he would begin by cutting off the water and the food and so his enemies, dying of hunger, would submit to him. It is the same with the passions of the flesh; if a man goes about fasting and hungry the enemies of his soul grow weak.
My brother, the passions are afflictions; and so the Lord does not excommunicate us because of them, but He says: 'Call upon me in the time of affliction; and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me'. Therefore, when beset by any kind of passion, there is nothing more useful than to call upon the Name of God. All we can do, weak as we are, is to flee for refuge to the Name of Jesus. For the passions, being demons, retreat if this Name is invoked.
When you intend to do something and see that your thought is perturbed, and if after invoking God's Name it remains perturbed even by a hair's breadth, know from this that the action you mean to commit is from the evil one and refrain from commiting it. For nothing done with perturbation is pleasing to God.
