Confess your sins not to the priest, but to the Lord Himself, only without hiding anything, from your whole heart. The priest is the mediator between you and God, and so the benefit of Confession depends on your open-heartedness.
The lower you descend, the higher you ascend; and when, like the psalmist, you regard yourself as nothing before the Lord (cf. Ps. 39:5), then imperceptibly you will grow great. And when you begin to realize that you have nothing and know nothing, then you will become rich in the Lord through the practice of the virtues and spiritual knowledge.
In words of boastfulness and self-justification there always lie concealed contrariness and pride, from which God turns away. After sinning one ought immediately to 'flee.' But, you will say, where? To the calm haven of heartfelt repentance. Every night before you go to sleep, tell God, the Knower of Hearts, all the sins you have committed in deed, word, and thought, and believe that God receives your heartfelt repentance. At the same time try to render your heart contrite by the memory of sudden death.
If the saints, who had attained passionlessless, had to be vigilant over themselves so as not to fall from their state of grace - then all the more is daily attentiveness and concern over our eternal salvation necessary for us sinners. The fact that we are still alive means that the Lord patiently endures our sins and awaits our amendment, and if someone lawfully labors for his salvation, the Lord takes him at a time when he becomes worthy of God’s mercy.
Tedium is the granddaughter of despondency, and the daughter of slothfulness. In order to drive it away, labor at your work, and do not be slothful in prayer. The tedium will pass, and zeal will come. And if to this you add patience and humility, then you will be rid of all misfortunes and evils.
He who wishes to purify his faults purifies them with tears, and he who wishes to acquire virtues, acquires them with tears; for weeping is the way the Scriptures and our Fathers give us, when they say 'Weep!' Truly, there is no other way than this.
Let not us who would be Christians expect anything else than to be crucified...for to be Christian is to be crucified in this time and in any time since Christ came for the first time. His life is the example and warning to us all. We must be crucified personally, mystically; for through crucifixion is the only path to resurrection, if we would rise with Christ, we must be humbled with him even to the ultimate humiliation, being devoured and spit forth by the uncomprehending world...we must be crucified outwardly in the eyes of the world, for Christ’s kingdom is not of this world and the world cannot bear it, even a single representative, even for the single moment. The world can only accept Antichrist now or at any time.
To pray with self-constraint is in our power, whereas to pray with compunction depends upon God. We must pray with what prayer we can, and for our self-constraint God will give us compunction also in due time, when this is pleasing to Him.
You write that after Communion you felt well. Glory be to God, Who comforts our unworthiness. And as regards the fact that this soon passed, here also is seen His fatherly providence for us. For continual consolation enfeebles the soul and makes it slothful, or leads to even greater harm. That is why the Lord takes it away quickly and again makes us feel our weakness, our helplessness, and our sinfulness. We must humble ourselves more, reproach ourselves, offer repentance for our sins, and not desire consolations, but patiently endure what God allows. Dryness and cooling of fervor are also permitted on account of vainglory.
There is no greater love than that a man lays down his life for his neighbor. When you hear someone complaining and you struggle with yourself and do not answer him back with complaints; when you are hurt and bear it patiently, not looking for revenge; then you are laying down your life for your neighbor.
I must tell you that annoying incidents are unavoidable in this life. Those who are experienced in the spiritual life say that such incidents can even bring profit to the soul. Through annoying incidents we come to recognize that we are impatient - and if we are impatient, that means we are proud. And this awareness should dispose us to self-reproach and repentance, and to asking mercy from the Lord in prayer. But without annoying incidents a man is inclined to conceit.
Repentance is real when afterwards you keep trying strenuously to live now as you ought; but without this it is not very effectual, if you repent just to say your sins & to keep on living as before.
The Antichrist must be understood as spiritual phenomenon..., why will everyone in the world want to bow down to him, obviously it is because there is something in him that responds to something in us, that something being lack of Christ in us, if we will bow down to him (God forbid that we do so) it will be because we feel an attraction to some kind of external thing which might even look like Christianity since Antichrist means the one that is in place of Christ or looks like Christ.
