A sorrowless earthly life is a true sign that the Lord has turned his face from a man, and that he is displeasing to God, even though outwardly he may seem reverent and virtuous.
Fasting needn't be limited to abstinence from food alone, because true fasting is departure from evil deeds. Forgive your neighbor any insult, abstain from causing your neighbor offence, abstain from irritation, from senseless sorrows, from fear, wrath, and so on. ‘True fasting is alienation from evil, temperance of the tongue, setting aside of wrath, casting out of lust, idle talk, lies, and oath-breaking’…This is a true and pleasing fast for the Lord. Departing from these vices and from a corrupt state is what comprises a true fast.
When you are generous to another person, you are not bestowing a gift, but repaying a debt. Everything you possess materially comes from God, who created all things. And every spiritual and moral virtue you possess is through divine grace. Thus you owe everything to God. More than that, God has given you his Son, to show you how to live: how to use your material possessions, and how to grow in moral and spiritual virtue. We may say that your material and spiritual possession cost God nothing; God created the universe in order to express His glory. But the gift of his Son was supremely costly, because His Son suffered and died for our sakes. The agony of Christ on the cross is the measure of how much God loves us. For this reason we should take none of our gifts-- material or spiritual --for granted; day by day we should give thanks to God for what He has bestowed on us. Once this spirit of gratitude infuses us, we shall see generosity for what it is. When we help someone in need, we shall be saved from any temptation to take pride in our actions. On the contrary, we will regard our act as no more than a small token of appreciation for all that we have received - or, more precisely, the repayment of a tiny fraction of God's blessings.
The full and complete definition of repentance is that we never again allow in ourselves the sins of which we repent, or whereby our conscience is stung. The mark of satisfaction and forgiveness is when we have driven out from our hearts all desire for them.
If you give gladly, even if you give only a little, it is a big gift. If you give unwillingly, even if you give a big gift, you turn it into a small one.
In the evening, on going to sleep (an image of death for the life of that day); examine your actions during the day that has passed. Such an examination is not difficult for one who leads an attentive life, because attention destroys that forgetfulness which is so characteristic of a distracted person. And thus, recalling all your sins in deed, word, thought and feeling, offer repentance over them to God with the disposition and heartfelt promise of correction.
Husbands, never call her simply by her name, but with terms of endearment, with honor, with much love. Honor her, and she will not need honor from others; she will not want the glory that comes from others, if she enjoys that which comes from thee. Prefer her before all, on every account, both for her beauty and her discernment, and praise her.
And just as material fire, applied to the soft clay, changes it to hard pottery, so the fire of the Holy Spirit, when it penetrates our soul, though it should find it softer than the clay, yet it will make it more unyielding than iron. And the soul that a little while ago was stained with the mire of sin, is all at once more splendid than the sun.
Brethren, let us also occupy yourselves with noetic prayer… and seeking God’s mercy, cry out with a humble heart from morning till night and if possible all night long, saying constantly: 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.'
To be here in church is the source of all blessings. When they leave here, it seems that a husband is more respectful to his wife and a wife is more kind to her husband, since it is not the physical beauty of the body that makes a wife loving, but the virtue of the soul, not cosmetics and beauty aids, not gold and rich clothing, but chastity, meekness, and constant fear of God. This spiritual beauty nowhere develops to such an extent as in this wonderful and divine place (church), where the apostles and prophets wash away, reform, and cleanse old sin and bring forth the brightness of youth; where they extinguish every stain, every blemish, every defilement of our soul .... Let us try, husbands and wives, to rejoice in our inner beauty.
In order to preserve the mind and body in a perfect condition abstinence from food is not alone sufficient: unless the other virtues of the mind as well are joined to it. And so humility must first be learned by the virtue of obedience, and grinding toil and bodily exhaustion. The madness of anger should be controlled; the downcast look of dejection be overcome; vainglory should be despised, the disdainfulness of pride trampled under foot, and the shifting and wandering thoughts of the mind restrained by continual recollection of God. And the slippery wanderings of our heart should be brought back again to the contemplation of God as often as our crafty enemy, in his endeavour to lead away the mind a captive from this consideration, creeps into the innermost recesses of the heart.
When He had fasted for forty days and for forty nights, and afterwards was hungry, He gave an opportunity to the devil to draw near, so that He might teach us through this encounter how we are to overcome and defeat him.
When day is done, let us give thanks both for what we have received throughout the day, and for what we have done rightly; and let us make confession of what we have not done, and of every sin, voluntary, or involuntary or even hidden from us, in word or in deed and even in our heart, that we may bring upon us God's mercy for all of them. For to examine ourselves upon what we have done is a great help against falling into the same sins again. The things you say in your hearts, be sorry for them upon your beds (Ps. iv. 5).
Even if we have innumerable virtues, the plague of vainglory is capable of destroying them all. If, then, we desire praises let us seek those which come from God.
