But if you give a strong body rest and ease and idleness, all the passions dwelling in the soul are intensified. Then, even if the soul has a great desire for good, even the very thought of the good that is desired will be taken from you.
Every day you provide your bodies with good to keep them from failing. In the same way your good works should be the daily nourishment of your hearts. Your bodies are fed with food and your spirits with good works. You aren't to deny your soul, which is going to live forever, what you grant to your body, which is going to die.
On that day God will not judge us about psalmody, nor for the neglect of prayer, but because by abandoning them, we have opened our door to the demons.
And so it often comes about that the life of one burning with love after having sinned is more pleasing to God than a life of innocence that grows languid in its sense of security.
It is not possible for any man to draw near to Christ without tribulation, and without afflictions his righteousness cannot be preserved unchanged. If he puts an end to the labors that make righteousness increase, he will put an end to that which guards it, and his righteousness will be like unguarded treasure. And he will be like a gladiator surrounded by enemy ranks and stripped of his weapons, like a ship bereft of its sails and tackle, and like a garden deprived of its source of water.
Every day you provide your bodies with good to keep them from failing. In the same way your good works should be the daily nourishment of your hearts. Your bodies are fed with food and your spirits with good works. You aren't to deny your soul, which is going to live forever, what you grant to your body, which is going to die.
Put aside bodily considerations when you stand in prayer, lest the bite of a flea, a gnat or a fly deprive you of the greatest gain afforded by prayer.
Let us love silence till the world is made to die in our hearts. Let us always remember death, and in this thought draw near to God in our heart--and the pleasures of this world will have our scorn.
