Why do you increase your bonds? Take hold of your life before your light grows dark and you seek help and do not find it. This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of our salvation, and its constant guardian. This it is which secures both the beginning of conversion, and the purging away of vices, and the safe retention of virtues...
It is just as shameful for lovers of the flesh and the belly to search out spiritual things as it is for a harlot to discourse on chastity. A body suffering grave illness shuns fatty foods and abhors them; and likewise, a mind occupied with worldly affairs cannot approach the inquiry into things of God. A fire cannot be ignited with wet wood, nor can the divine fervor be kindled in a heart that loves ease.
When patience greatly increases in our soul, it is a sign that we have secretly received the grace of consolation. The power of patience is stronger than the joyful thoughts that descend into the heart. Life in God is the downfall of the senses; when the heart lives, the senses fall away. The resurrection of the senses is the deadening of the heart; when the senses are quickened, it is a sign that the heart has died to God.
The virtues follow one from another in succession, so that the path of virtue does not become grievous and burdensome, and so that by being achieved in order progressively they may be made light; thus the hardships endured for virtue's sake should be cherished by a man as is the good itself.
Know my brethren that love has two characteristics, two gifts. One of them is to strengthen man in what is good and the other is to weaken him in what is evil. I have a loaf of bread to eat; you do not have. Love tells me: Do not eat it alone, give some to your brethren and you eat the rest. I have clothes; love tells me: Give one garment to your brother and you wear the other one. I open my mouth to accuse you, to tell you lies, to deceive you; but at once I remember love and it deadens my mouth, and does not allow me to tell you lies. I stretch out my hands to take what belongs to you, your money, all your possessions. Love does not allow me to take them. Do you see, my brethren, what gifts love has?
The belly when filled with all kinds of food gives birth to seeds of wantonness, nor can the mind, when choked with the weight of food, keep the guidance and government of the thoughts. For not only is drunkenness with wine wont to intoxicate the mind, but excess of all kinds of food makes it weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear contemplation. The cause of the overthrow and wantonness of Sodom was not drunkenness through wine, but fullness of bread. Hear the Lord rebuking Jerusalem through the prophet. 'For how did thy sister Sodom sin, except in that she ate her bread in fullness and abundance?' (Ezek. xvi. 49)
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.
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 your mind from malicious thoughts of your neighbors, knowing that such thoughts are hurled by diabolical power, to keep your mind from your own sins and from seeking.
Leaves, whether of gold or lead, placed over the eyes, obstruct the sight equally, for the value of gold does not affect the blindness it produces. Similarly, anger, whether reasonable or unreasonable, obstructs our spiritual vision.
Do not oppose the thoughts, which the enemy sows in you, but rather cut off all converse with them by prayer to God. We have not always strength enough so to oppose hostile thoughts as to stop them; on the contrary, in such attempts they frequently inflict us with a wound that is long in healing.
