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 does not reflect. Love is simple. Love never mistakes. Likewise believe and trust without refection, for faith and trust are also simple; or better: God, in Whom we believe and in Whom we trust, is an incomplex Being, as He is also simply love.
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.
Keep a strict watch against any appearance of pride: it appears imperceptibly, particularly in time of vexation and irritability against others for quite unimportant causes.
Never neglect reading from the Fathers. You will benefit greatly because the saints set an example for you. You see your faults and failings as if in a mirror and correct your life. Reading is like light in the darkness.
Prayer offered up at night possesses a great power, more so than the prayer of the day-time. Therefore all the righteous prayed during the night, while combating the heaviness of the body and the sweetness of sleep and repelling bodily nature.
Affliction, if not accompanied by patience, produces double torment, for a man's patience casts off his distress, while faintness of heart is the mother of anguish. Patience is the mother of consolation and is a certain strength which is usually born of largeness of heart. It is hard for a man to find this strength in his tribulations without a gift from God, received through his ardent pursuit of prayer and the outpouring of his tears.
Conscience in men is nothing else but the voice of the omnipresent God moving in the hearts of men, as He Who alone Is and has created everything, the Lord knows all as Himself - all the thoughts, desires, intentions, words, and works of men, present, past, and future. However far in front I may let my thoughts, my imagination, run He is there before me and I ever inevitably finish my course in Him, ever having Him as the witness of my ways. 'His eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men' (Jer 32:19). 'Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?' (Ps 139:7).
Your enemy, the evil one, the father of lies, does not slumber; and endeavors, by every means open to him, to harden your heart --- to make it false and crafty, to drive out from it faith and hope in God - together with love for Him and love and sympathy for your neighbor - and to occupy you with worldly, temporal interests. Watch yourself, watch the thoughts of your heart, and do not bind yourself in the chains of worldly desires and pleasures. Let your happiness be in the one God and the human soul.
The truth and saving properties of our holy faith are clearly revealed by the fact that not a single Sacrament, not a single faithful prayer are left fruitless in us, but they bring and manifest their power from heaven upon our souls and bodies, cleansing our sins, and giving peace to our souls in accordance with the words of our Savior: 'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest' (Mt. 11:28); and delivering us from spiritual afflictions and bodily sicknesses! No, we never pray in vain to the Lord, or to the most holy Virgin, or to the angels and saints, but we receive all that we ask them for, and that tends to our salvation.
Blasphemy brings the wrath of the Lord upon the rulers, the armies and the nations… the blasphemers are the most impious and sinful of all…It is an absolute need that the wound of blasphemy be completely wiped out from the Nation in order for it to have good fortune, to be glorified and uplifted.
The enemy of our salvation especially strives to draw our heart and mind away from God when we are about to serve Him, and endeavors to adulterously attach our heart to something irrelevant. Be always, every moment, with God, especially when you pray to Him. If you are inconstant, you will fall away from life, and will cast yourself into sorrow and straitness.
'When ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed are ye, seeing that ye are become partakers of the sufferings of Christ' (1 Peter 3:14; 4:13). Therefore, when you are unoppressed do not rejoice; and when tribulations come upon you, do not be sullen, accounting them as foreign to God’s way. For His path has been trodden from the ages and from all generations by the cross and by death. But how is it with you, that the afflictions on the path seem to you to be off the path? Do you not wish to follow the steps of the saints? Or have you plans for devising some way of your own, and of journeying therein without suffering?
Men who are leading a spiritual life see by the eyes of their heart how the devil lays his snares, how the angels guide us, and how the Lord, in His Sovereign power, allows the temptations, and how he comforts.
What does the daily invocation of the saints signify - of different ones each day, during the whole year, and during our whole life? It signifies that God's saints, as our brethren - but perfect - live, and are near us, ever ready to help us, by the grace of God. We live together with them in the house of our Heavenly Father, only in different parts of it. We live in the earthly, they in the heavenly half, but we can converse with them, and they with us. God's saints are near to the believing heart, and are ready in a moment to help those who call upon them with faith and love.
