Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.
Stillness mortifies the outward senses and resurrects the inward movements, whereas agitation does the opposite, that is, it resurrects the outward senses and deadens the inward movements.
Why do you increase your bonds? Take hold of your life before your light grows dark and you seek help and do not find it. This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits.
As it is not possible to cross over the great ocean without a ship, so no one can attain to love without fear. This filthy sea, which lies between us and the paradise of the heart, we may cross by the boat of repentance, whose oarsmen are those of fear. But if fear's oarsmen do not pilot the boat of repentance whereby we cross over the sea of this world to God, we shall be drowned in the sordid abyss.
Love of God proceeds from conversing with him; this conversation of prayer comes about through stillness, and stillness comes with the stripping away of the self.
Today, with the voice of the archpastors of the Church, I am being called to enter into the archpastoral service. I do not presume myself worthy of such a dignity, aware as I am of my sinfulness; but I fear to refuse it, hearing the words which the Lord directed towards Peter who had sinned so grievously, though he later repented: 'If thou lovest Me, feed My sheep, feed My lambs .' In explaining this Gospel passage, St. John Chrysostom calls attention to the fact that as a proof of love it was none other than the podvig of pastoral service that the Lord demanded. Why is pastoral service so great in the eyes of the Lord? Because, in the words of the Apostle Paul, pastors are 'laborers together with God' (I Cor. 3:9). Christ came to earth to restore in man God's image which had grown defiled, to call people, to unite them as one that faith one mouth and one heart they would glorify their Creator.
Not every man is wakened to wonder by what is said spiritually and has great power concealed in it. A word concerning virtue has need of a heart unbusied with the earth and its converse.
Let us look after those who precede us into the other world, and do for them all that we can, remembering that Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
