While you are on earth, regard yourself as a guest of the Host, that is, of Christ. If you are at table, He honors you thus. If you breathe the air, you breathe His air. If you bathe, you bathe in His water. If you travel, you travel around His earth. If you accumulate goods, you accumulate what is His; if you squander them, you squander what is His. If you are influential, you are so by His permission. If you are in company with others, you are with His other guests. If you are in the countryside, you are in His garden. If you are alone, He is present. If you set off anywhere, He sees you. If you do anything, He has it in mind. He is the most careful Host whose guest you have ever been. And be, in your turn, careful towards Him. A good host merits a good guest. These are all simple words, but they speak a great truth to you. All the saints knew this truth, and ordered their lives accordingly. Therefore the immortal Host rewarded them with eternal life in heaven and with glory on earth.
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.
Whoever repents sincerely is prepared to withstand any sorrow: hunger and homelessness, cold and heat, illness and poverty, humiliation and banishment, lies and slander, for the soul seeks God and does not concern itself with anything worldly, but instead prays with a clear mind.
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.
For by prayer we obtain the divine favor, by fasting we extinguish the concupiscences of the flesh, by almsgiving sins are redeemed (Dan. iv. 24); and by all three together, the image of God is renewed in us, provided that we are ever ready in His praise, eager without ceasing for our own purification, and disposed at all times to assist our neighbor.
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.
If you want to cure your soul, you need four things. The first is to forgive your enemies. The second is to confess thoroughly. The third is to blame yourself. The fourth is to resolve to sin no more. If we wish to be saved, we must always blame ourselves and not attribute our wrong acts to others. And God, Who is most compassionate, will forgive us.
If you will pray for your enemies, peace will come to you; but when you can love your enemies - know that a great measure of the grace of God dwells in you, though I do not say perfect grace as yet, but sufficient for salvation. Whereas if you revile your enemies, it means there is an evil spirit living in you and bringing evil thoughts into your heart, for, in the words of the Lord, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts - or good thoughts.
For not only are spiritual riches and heavenly gifts received from God, but earthly and material possessions also proceed from His bounty, that He may be justified in requiring an account of those things which He has not so much put in our possession, as committed to our stewardship. God’s gifts, therefore, we must use properly and wisely, lest the material for good work should become an occasion for sin.
The Holy Fathers recommend 'moderate' fasting; one ought not to allow the body to be weakened too much, for then the soul, too, is harmed. Nor ought one to undertake fasting too suddenly; everything demands practice, and each one should look to his own nature and occupation. To choose among different kinds of food is to be condemned; all food is God-given, but it is advisable to avoid such kinds as add to the body's weight and appetite; strong spices, meat, spirituous drinks and such foods as are solely for the palate's enjoyment. For the rest, one may eat what is cheap and most easily available, they say. But by 'moderate' they mean one meal a day, and that one light enough not to fill the stomach to satiety.
An Athonite elder said, 'Blasphemous thoughts are like airplanes that annoy us, against our will, with their noise, and we are powerless to prevent them. The heavy anti-aircraft battery is psalmody, because it is both prayer to Christ and disdain for the devil.'
The heavenly is experienced through the Holy Spirit, and the earthly through the mind: whoever wants to experience God with his mind through learning is in vainglory, for God can only be experienced through the Holy Spirit.
