When the door of steam baths is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul in its desire to say many things, dissipates the remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says may be good... Ideas of value always shun verbosity, being foreign to confusion and fantasy. Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.
The Saints were people just like ourselves. Many of them started with grievous sins but through repentance they attained the Kingdom of Heaven. And every one who comes to the Kingdom of Heaven does so through repentance which the Merciful Lord granted us by His sufferings. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the holy Saints look upon the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; but through the Holy Spirit they see, too, the sufferings of men on earth. The Lord gave them such great grace that they embrace the whole world with their love. They see and know how we languish in affliction, how our hearts have withered within us, how despondency has fettered our souls, and they never cease to intercede for us to God.
People, until they come to know something greater, are satisfied with the little that they have. Man is like a village rooster who lives in a small enclosure with few people and farm animals about, who knows his ten hens and is content with this life, because he knows no more. But an eagle, who circles high in the clouds, and sees great distances with his sharp eyes, who hears the sounds of the earth and revels in its beauty, who knows many lands, seas and rivers, and sees a multitude of
animals and birds, would not be content to live in a small enclosure with a rooster. It is the same in spiritual life. Whoever has not known the grace of the Holy Spirit is like the rooster who does not know the flight of the eagle; he cannot comprehend the sweetness of tender emotion and love of God. He knows God from nature and from Scripture, he is satisfied with the law and is content with his lot as is the rooster, and does not feel sorrow that he is not an eagle. But he who has experienced the Lord through the Holy Spirit, he prays day and night, because the grace of the Holy Spirit calls him to love the Lord, and the sweetness of the Lord's love gives him the ability to carry the burdens of the world with ease; his soul pines only for the Lord and searches constantly for the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Any soul which has lost its peace must repent, and the Lord will forgive its sins, and then peace and joy will visit the soul. There need be no witnesses, for the Holy Spirit is the witness of the remission of sins. Here is a sign of forgiveness: if you have come to hate sin, then the Lord has forgiven your sin.
Great is this mystery, and great is the mercy of God towards man. If all the people of the earth knew how deeply the Lord loves man their hearts would be filled with love of Christ and Christ’s humility, and they would seek to be like Him in all things. But man cannot do this by himself, for it is only in the Holy Spirit that he can become like unto Christ. Man that is fallen purifies himself through repentance, and is made new by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and in all things becomes like unto the Lord.
It's difficult to be saved in the world amidst the seductions and the customs of this world that go counter to the Holy Church. Evil communications corrupt good manners (I Cor. 15:33). It's difficult to be saved in the midst of dissolute society. In the Holy Scriptures it is said, With the holy man wilt thou be holy, and with the innocent man wilt thou be innocent. And with the elect man wilt thou be elect, and with the perverse wilt thou be perverse (Ps. 17:25-6).
The heavenly is experienced through the Holy Spirit, and the earthly through the mind: whoever wants to experience God with his mind through learning is in vainglory, for God can only be experienced through the Holy Spirit.
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.'
Compunction comes when you consider how much you have grieved God Who is so good, so sweet, so merciful, so kind, and entirely full of love; Who was crucified and suffered everything for us. When you meditate on these things and other things the Lord has suffered, they bring compunction.
