Was there ever anyone of any breeding who dared to speak the name of Holy Mary, and being questioned, did not immediately add, 'the Virgin'? For by such added names the positive proofs of merit are apparent... And to the Holy Mary, Virgin is invariably added, for that Holy Woman remains undefiled.
He is not yet a faithful servant who bases himself on bare knowledge alone; a faithful servant is he who professes his faith by obedience to Christ, Who gave the commandments.
Many people will be found pleasing God, for whom it will be possible, in the mountains and in desert places, to save themselves by much prayer….for God, seeing their many tears and sincere faith, will have mercy on them, as a tender Father, and will keep them.
If we want to do something but cannot, then before God, Who knows our hearts, it is as if we have done it. This is true whether the intended action is good or bad.
A truly intelligent man has only one care -- wholeheartedly to obey Almighty God and to please Him. The one and only thing he teaches his soul is how best to do things agreeable to God, thanking Him for His merciful Providence in whatever may happen in his life. For just as it would be unseemly not to thank physicians for curing our body, even when they give us bitter and unpleasant remedies, so too would it be to remain ungrateful to God for things that appear to us painful, failing to understand that everything happens through His Providence for our good. In this understanding and this faith in God lie salvation and peace of soul.
Woe is he who knowingly chooses to sin with the intention to repent when morning comes, for he knows not what the coming day or the night that precedes it will bring.
No one can be saved without the renunciation of his will, even though he might struggle fervently, for our will and our manner are like a bronze wall between us and God.
He who wishes to tear up the account of his sins and to be inscribed in the Divine book of the saved, can find for this purpose no better means than obedience.
The Lord commands all men to repent (Matt. 4:17), so that even the spiritual and those making progress should not neglect this injunction and fail to give attention to the smallest and most subtle errors.
Those who have sinned must not despair. Let that never be. For we are condemned not for the multitude of evils, but because we do not want to repent...
Remember me, ye heirs of God, ye brethren of Christ, supplicate the Saviour earnestly for me, that I may be freed though Christ from him that fights against me day by day.
The grace of the Spirit is one and unchanging, but energizes in each one of us as He wills. When rain falls upon the earth, it gives life to the quality inherent in each plant: sweetness in the sweet, astringency in the astringent; similarly, when grace falls upon the hearts of the faithful, it gives to each the energies appropriate to the different virtues without itself changing.
If Moses, who was a god to Pharaoh, was shut out from the Land of Promise because of one word, how much more will not the evil speech of our tongue, by which we offend and hurt both God and man, shut us out from heaven?
