When the enemy tempts you with thoughts of faithlessness, with all your heart say, I believe completely whatever the Church believes, whatever Christ says in the Holy Gospels, whatever the Holy Apostles and the Holy Fathers said. 'I don't, however, believe you, devil, for you are a liar and a thief.'
One must train oneself in generous patience, so as to endure without complaint all that happens to us. We will possess patience when we accept everything that happens to us, both what is joyful and what is sad, without distinction, as from the hand of God.
A man may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning others, he is babbling ceaselessly. But there may be another who talks from morning till night and yet he is truly silent, that is, he says nothing that is not profitable.
Do not neglect the practice of the virtues; if you do, your spiritual knowledge will decrease, and when famine occurs you will go down into Egypt (Genesis 41:57, 46:6).
One of the Fathers said: just as it is impossible for a man to see his face in troubled water, so too the soul, unless it be cleansed of alien thoughts, cannot pray to God in contemplation.
