I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, 'What can get through from such snares?' Then I heard a voice saying to me, 'Humility.'
Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.
You will not perish on account of thoughts with which you do not sympathize and from which you at least try to be freed. Only repent, & humble yourself. And God will forgive you.
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.
He stands, then - but not alone, for before Him go angels, saying: 'Lift up the gates, O ye the princes.' What gates? Even those of which the Psalmist sings in another place also: 'Open to me the gates of righteousness.' Open, then, thy gates to Christ, that He may come into thee - open the gates of righteousness, the gates of chastity, the gates of courage and wisdom. Believe the message of the angels: 'Be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in, the Lord of Sabaoth.'
Was there ever anyone of any breeding who dared to speak the name of Holy Mary, and being questioned, did not immediately add, 'the Virgin'? For by such added names the positive proofs of merit are apparent... And to the Holy Mary, Virgin is invariably added, for that Holy Woman remains undefiled.
He who has not received within himself the kingdom of God cannot recognize the Antichrist. He is absolutely sure to become in a way incomprehensible to himself his follower.
Unless the inner man meditates upon the law of God and is nourished thereby, unless he is strengthened by reading and by prayer, he is conquered by the outer man, and he serves his master.
The Holy Fathers teach us how to become familiar with the Gospel, how to read it and how to understand it, what helps and what opposes its understanding. Therefore, at first you must devote more time to reading the Holy Fathers...
In the grim struggle with the invisible enemies of our salvation, the supreme weapon is the prayer of Jesus. `All the nations' - the vociferous and wily demons are called nations - `surround me,' says David, `and in the name of the Lord I repulsed them. They encircled and surrounded me like bees, and they burnt like fire among thorns; and in the name of the Lord I repulsed them' (Ps. 117:10-12). With the name of Jesus flog the foes, because there is no stronger weapon in heaven or earth.
The time is coming when people will be insane, and when they see someone who is not insane, they will attack him saying 'You are insane because you are not like us.'
Let us then not be ashamed to confess our sins unto the Lord. Shame indeed there is when each makes known his sins, but that shame, as it were, ploughs his land, removes the ever-recurring brambles, prunes and thorns, and gives life to the fruits which he believed were dead. Follow him who, by diligently ploughing his field, sought for eternal fruit: 'Being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure, being defamed we entreat, we are made as the offscouring of the world' (Luke 13:7). If you plough after this fashion you will sow spiritual seed. Plough that you may get rid of sin and gain fruit. He ploughed so as to destroy in himself the last tendency to persecution. What more could Christ give to lead us on to the pursuit of perfection, than to convert and then give us for a teacher one who was a persecutor?
