One day, a young monk came to see an elder and asked him, 'What must I do, Father? I fall continuously in the same sin.' The elder replied, 'If you fall into sin, get up and do penance.' Monk: 'And if I fall again?' Elder: 'Then get up and repent of your sin again.' Monk: 'But until when?' Elder: 'Until your death.'
It was said of Abba John the Dwarf that he withdrew and lived in the desert at Scetis with an old man of Thebes. His abba, taking a piece of dry wood, planted it and said to him, 'Water it every day with a bottle of water, until it bears fruit.' Now the water was so far away that he had to leave in the evening and return the following morning. At the end of three years the wood came to life and bore fruit. The old man took some of the fruit and carried it to the church saying to the brethren, 'Take and eat the fruit of obedience.'
Beguiling and deceptive is the life of the world, fruitless its labor, perilous its delight, poor its riches, delusive its honors, inconstant, insignificant; and woe to those who hope in its seeming goods: because of this many die without repentance. Blessed and most blessed are those who depart from the world and its desires.
An old man was asked, 'How can I find God?' He said, 'In fasting, in watching, in labors, in devotion, and, above all, in discernment. I tell you, many have injured their bodies without discernment and have gone away from us having achieved nothing. Our mouths smell bad through fasting, we know the Scriptures by heart, we recite all the Psalms of David, but we have not that which God seeks: charity and humility.'
When the holy Abba Anthony lived in the desert he was beset by boredom, and attacked by many sinful thoughts. He said to God, 'Lord, I want to be saved but these thoughts do not leave me alone; what shall I do in my affliction? How can I be saved?' A short while afterwards, when he got up to go out, Anthony saw a man like himself sitting at his work, getting up from his work to pray, then sitting down and plaiting a rope, then getting up again to pray. It was an angel of the Lord sent to correct and reassure him: 'Do this and you will be saved.' At these words, Anthony was filled with joy and courage. He did this, and he was saved.
The Fathers used to say, “If temptation befall thee in the place thou dost inhabit, desert not the place in the time of temptation: for if thou dost, wheresoever thou goest, thou shalt find what thou fliest before thee.”
Anger is by nature designed for waging war with the demons and for struggling with every kind of sinful pleasure. Therefore angels, arousing spiritual pleasure in us and giving us to taste its blessedness, incline us to direct our anger against the demons. But the demons, enticing us towards worldly lusts, make us use anger to fight with men, which is against nature, so that the mind, thus stupefied and darkened, should become a traitor to virtues.
The spiritual discipline of fasting is a tool for shifting the focus away from us and toward the Lord and our brothers and sisters in whom we encounter Him each day. If we distort fasting into a private religious accomplishment to prove how holy we are, we would do better not to fast at all. That would simply be a way of serving ourselves instead of God and those who bear His image and likeness. In Lent, our focus must be set squarely on Christ and His living icons, not on us. The fundamental calling of the Christian life is to become like our Lord, Who offered Himself up for the salvation of the world purely out of love. If we are truly in communion with Him, then we too must offer up ourselves for our neighbors. And as He taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan, there are no limits on what it means to be a neighbor to anyone who is in need, regardless of nationality, culture, or anything else. Those who limit their concern for people according to such standards place serving the kingdoms of this world before fidelity to the Kingdom of God.
In patience is the assembly of all the virtues by which our souls are saved, as St. Ephraim says: having acquired patience, one touches on every virtue; for one rejoices in sorrows, and is well-tried in misfortunes, is joyful in danger, ready for obedience, filled with love, glories in vexation, is humbled in reproaches, unwavering in misfortunes; he who has acquired patience has acquired hope, and such a one is adorned with every good work.
A certain brother asked the Abbot Poemen, saying, 'What am I to do, Father, for I am troubled in sadness?' The old man said to him, 'Look to no man for aught, condemn no man, disparage no man: and God shall give thee rest.'
It is not always possible to fulfill the usual rules; one must take circumstances into account and try to fulfill what they make possible, as far as one can. The demons themselves are not unmindful of this law. So, being in constant enmity with us, they prevent us from doing what is possible and urge us to do what is impossible.
