A little fire softens a large piece of wax. So, too, a small indignity often softens, sweetens and wipes away suddenly all the fierceness, insensibility & hardness of our heart.
Do not regard the feelings of a person who speaks to you about his neighbor disparagingly, but rather say to him: 'Stop, brother! I fall into graver sins every day, so how can I criticize him?' In this way you will achieve two things: you will heal yourself and your neighbor with one plaster. This is one of the shortest ways to the forgiveness of sins; I mean, not to judge. 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged,' (Luke 6:37).
If you have promised Christ to go by the strait and narrow way, restrain your stomach, because by pleasing it and enlarging it, you break your contract. Attend and you will hear Him who says: 'Spacious and broad is the way of the belly that leads to the perdition of fornication, and many there are who go in by it; because narrow is the gate and strait is the way of fasting that leads to the life of purity, and few there be that find it.'
Fear is a rehearsing of danger beforehand; or again, fear is a trembling sensation of the heart, alarmed and troubled by unknown misfortunes. Fear is a loss of assurance.
When you close the doors to your dwelling and are alone you should know that there is present with you the angel whom God has appointed for each man...This angel, who is sleepless and cannot be deceived, is always present with you; he sees all things and is not hindered by darkness. You should know, too, that with him is God, who is in every place; for there is no place and nothing material in which God is not, since He is greater than all things and holds all men in His hand.
We must not think that anyone slips and comes to ruin by a sudden fall; it is rather that he has been deceived by the beginnings of evil habits, or else, by prolonged mental negligence, virtue has little by little withdrawn from him, and vices have thereby grown stronger, and he has come thus to a miserable fall. For Pride goeth before destruction, and the spirit is lifted up before a fall (Prov.16:18 LXX). Just as a house never falls in ruin by a sudden shock unless there has been some long-standing fault in the foundations, or by the prolonged carelessness of the tenants, little driblets at first penetrate through and slowly undermine the walls, which, inconsequence of the old neglect, open in ever wider apertures and crumble away, and then let in the tempest of rain and storm in torrents. For by slothfulness a building shall be brought down, and through the weakness of hands the house shall drop through (Ecclus. 10:19 LXX).
Therefore we must not grow weary. We must be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord our labor is not in vain (I Corinthians 15:58). Having once begun, we must not cease to perform deeds worthy of our repentance. To rest is the same as to retreat.
During the divine services, and at the very moment when the Mysteries (e.g., Holy Communion) are being accomplished, this vile enemy often blasphemes the Lord and the holy Sacrifice that is being consecrated. Wherefore, we clearly learn that it is not our soul that pronounces these unspeakable, godless and unthinkable words within us, but the God-hating fiend who fled from Heaven for uttering blasphemies against the Lord there too, as it would seem. For if these shameless and disgraceful words are my own, how could I worship after receiving the Gift? How can I praise and revile at one and the same time?
He who refuses to accept a criticism, just or not, renounces his own salvation, while he who accepts it, hard or not though it may be, will soon have his sins forgiven.
Those who mourn and those who are insensitive are not subject to fear, but the cowardly often have become deranged. And this is natural. For the Lord rightly forsakes the proud that the rest of us may learn not to be puffed up.
The saints’ freedom from envy is a wonderful phenomenon. The saints not only did not allow envy to conquer their hearts, but exerted themselves greatly to ensure that their friends be exalted and they themselves debased.
