Bodily purity is primarily attained through fasting, and through bodily purity comes spiritual purity. Abstinence from food, according to the words of that son of grace, St. Ephraim the Syrian, means: 'Not to desire or demand much food, either sweet or costly; to eat nothing outside the stated times; not to give oneself over to gratification of the appetite; not to stir up hunger in oneself by looking at good food; and not to desire one or another sort of food.
If your heart has been softened either by repentance before God or by learning the boundless love of God towards you, do not be proud with those whose hearts are still hard. Remember how long your heart was hard and incorrigible. Seven brothers were ill in one hospital. One recovered from his illness and got up and rushed to serve his other brothers with brotherly love, to speed their recovery. Be like this brother. Consider all men to be your brothers, and sick brothers at that. And if you come to feel that God has given you better health than others, know that it is given through mercy, so in health you may serve your frailer brothers.
Sear your loins by abstaining from food, and prove your heart by controlling your speech, and you will succeed in bringing the desiring and incensive powers of your soul into the service of what is noble and good.
No Christian believing rightly in God should ever be off his guard. He should always be on the look-out for temptation, so that when it comes he will not be surprised or disturbed, but will gladly endure the toil and affliction it causes, and so will understand what he is saying when he chants with the prophet: 'Prove me, O Lord, and try me' (Ps. 26:2 LXX). For the prophet did not say, 'Thy correction has destroyed me,' but, 'it has upheld me to the end' (Ps. 18:35 LXX).
When you shed floods of tears during prayer, do not exalt yourself for this, as though you were above many others. It is that your prayer has received help from above, so that, having zealously confessed your sins, you may incline the almighty to mercy by your tears.
Be fond of working with your hands, but still more of the memory of prayer; because the first does not always bring us the fruit of that occupation, while the second does so unceasingly. Do not stop praying until you have paid your due of prayer in full, and do not listen to the thought that it is time to sit down to work. Equally, when you sit at work, do not be too concerned in it, lest you agitate the heart by your haste and make it worthless for prayer.
Christ is present in every part of the Church; that is, in every faithful member of it. Through Him, each of the faithful perceives the spiritual Kingdom, feels love and directs his steps aright towards God. From Him, every member receives strength, according to the ‘effectual working and measure’; that is, by function and gift. The Lord gives this strength directly, by His personal presence. Love is a wonderful bond that binds Christ to the believer, the believer to Christ and the faithful to one another.
Pray firstly to be purified of passions, secondly to be freed from ignorance and forgetfulness, and thirdly to be delivered from all temptation and forsaking.
Do you wish God to hear your prayer immediately, brother? When you lift your hands up to heaven, pray first of all, with your heart, for your enemies and God will grant you speedily whatever else you request.
If your heart has been softened either by repentance before God or by learning the boundless love of God towards you, do not be proud with those whose hearts are still hard. Remember how long your heart was hard and incorrigible. Seven brothers were ill in one hospital. One recovered from his illness and got up and rushed to serve his other brothers with brotherly love, to speed their recovery. Be like this brother. Consider all men to be your brothers, and sick brothers at that. And if you come to feel that God has given you better health than others, know that it is given through mercy, so in health you may serve your frailer brothers.
Do not rail against anyone, but rather say ‘God knows each one.’ Do not agree with him who slanders, do not rejoice at his slander and do not hate him who slanders his neighbor. This is what it means not to judge.
And Jesus, when He was baptised, went up straightway out of the water; and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him; and lo, a voice from heaven saying: 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' The Spirit did not descend on Christ while He was down in the water, but when He came out of it. By this, the wisdom of God seeks to show us that the Spirit of God does not descend on the old man, who is alive to sin and dead to God, but only on the man spiritually re-born, who has died to sin and come alive to God.
Let us be sure, then, that God will not give spiritual gifts - the gifts of understanding, of faith, of love, of purity, of prophecy, of working wonders, of power over demons, of insight, of sight of the heavenly world, to him who has gambled with and made evil use, like the Prodigal Son, of the gifts of bodily health, honor, wealth, success among men or knowledge of this material world, or some other skill or capacity.
