The incessant invocation of God's name is a medicine which mortifies not just the passions, but even their influence. Just as the physician puts medications or dressings on a wound that it might be healed, without the patient even knowing the manner of their operation, so also the name of God, when we invoke it, mortifies all passions, though we do not know how that happens.
Watch constantly, learning to understand God's law, for this warms the heart with heavenly fire. Guard your lips from the idle word, or empty talk, lest the heart gets used to evil words.
If Nabuzardan, the court cook of the King of the Babylonians, had not gone to Jerusalem, then the Temple would not have burned (cf. 2 Kings 24), That is to say, a person’s mind is not attacked by the flames of carnal pleasures, if a person is not conquered by gluttony.
Concerning fasting, do not grieve, as I have said to you before: God does not demand of anyone labors beyond his strength. And indeed, what is fasting if not a punishment of the body in order to humble a healthy body and make it infirm for passions, according to the word of the Apostle: 'When I am weak, then am I strong' (II Corinthians 12:10).
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.
Patience adorns the soul with diamonds which are not of the earth but belong to the Jerusalem that is above. Patience is a sweet word. Patience is a sweet breath. Patience is an invincible weapon. Patience is a priceless adornment of man. Patience is a blessing of God.
Leave off all evasions, bend your neck to humility and obedience, and you will receive mercy. If you practice with humility and obedience what you hear from the fathers, God will grant you His blessed help not only in the work you are doing, but will make all your works successful, for He protects the path of those who fear Him and watches their progress.
You must flee from sensual things. Verily, every time a man comes close to a struggle with sensuality, he is like a man standing at the edge of a deep lake, and the enemy throws him in whenever he likes. But if the man lives far from sensual things, he is like one who stands at a distance from the lake, so that even if the enemy entices him in order to throw him to the bottom, God sends him help at the very moment that the enemy is drawing him away and doing him violence.
At the Lord's table we do not commemorate martyrs in the same way that we do others who rest in peace so as to pray for them, but rather that they may pray for us that we may follow in their footsteps.
For forgiveness of sins is most efficaciously prayed for with almsgiving and fasting, and supplications that are winged by such aids mount swiftly to God’s ears; since it is written, 'the merciful man doeth good to his own soul' (Prov. xi. 17), and nothing is so much a man’s own as that which he spends on his neighbor. For that part of his material possessions with which he ministers to the needy, is transformed into eternal riches, and such wealth is begotten of this bountifulness as can never be diminished or in any way destroyed, for 'blessed are the merciful, for God shall have mercy on them' (Matt. v.7), and He himself shall be their chief Reward, who is the Model of His own command.
At the Lord's table we do not commemorate martyrs in the same way that we do others who rest in peace so as to pray for them, but rather that they may pray for us that we may follow in their footsteps.
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.
Apostolic teaching, Beloved, exhorts us that we put off the old man with his deeds (Eph. iv. 22; Col. iii. 9), and renew ourselves from day to day by a holy manner of life. For if we are the temple of God, and if the Holy Spirit is a Dweller in our souls, as the Apostle says: You are the temple of the living God (II Cor. vi. 16); we must then strive with all vigilance that the dwelling of our heart be not unworthy of so great a Guest.
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.
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.
