A small affliction borne for God's sake is better [before God] than a great work performed without tribulation, because affliction willingly borne brings to light the proof of love.
The origin of the Christian life is in arousal by grace. A person who has heeded this arousal is not then deprived of guidance by grace and communion with it at all times, as it persists through proper attention to it.
In general, loquacity opens the doors of the soul, and the devout warmth of the heart at once escapes. Empty talk does the same, but even more so… Empty talk is the door to criticism and slander, the spreader of false rumors and opinions, the sower of discord and strife. It stifles the taste for mental work and almost always serves as a cover for the absence of sound knowledge…
As a man whose head is under water cannot inhale pure air, so a man whose thoughts are plunged into the cares of this world cannot absorb the sensations of that new world.
The evil one cannot comprehend the joy we receive from the spiritual life; for this reason he is jealous of us, he envies us and sets traps for us, and we become grieved and fall. We must struggle, because without struggles we do not obtain virtues.
You have the book of discourses by St. Macarius of Egypt. Kindly read the 19th discourse, concerning a Christian's duty to force himself to do good. There it is written, 'One must force oneself to pray, even if one has no spiritual prayer.' And, 'In such a case, God, seeing that a man earnestly is striving, pushing himself against the will of his heart (that is, his thoughts), He grants him true prayer.' By true prayer, St. Macarius means the undistracted, collected, deep prayer that occurs when the mind stands unswervingly before God. As the mind begins to stand firmly before God, it discovers such sweetness, that it wishes to remain in true prayer forever, desiring nothing more.
Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.
Fasting appears gloomy until one steps into its arena. But begin and you will see what light it brings after darkness, what freedom from bonds, what release after a burdensome life…
The more a man's tongue flees verbosity, the more his intellect is illumined so as to be able to discern deep thoughts; for the rational intellect is befuddled by verbosity.
