O man, learn the humility of Christ and the Lord will give you to taste of the sweetness of prayer. And if you would pray cleanly, be humble and temperate, confess yourself thoroughly, and prayer will feel at home in you. Be obedient, submit with a good conscience to those in authority; be content with all things, and your mind will be cleansed of vain thoughts. Remember that the Lord sees you, and be fearful lest you anywise offend your brother, whom neither dispraise nor grieve, even by a look, and the Holy Spirit will love you and will Himself be your help in all things.
The Saints were people just like ourselves. Many of them started with grievous sins but through repentance they attained the Kingdom of Heaven. And every one who comes to the Kingdom of Heaven does so through repentance which the Merciful Lord granted us by His sufferings. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the holy Saints look upon the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; but through the Holy Spirit they see, too, the sufferings of men on earth. The Lord gave them such great grace that they embrace the whole world with their love. They see and know how we languish in affliction, how our hearts have withered within us, how despondency has fettered our souls, and they never cease to intercede for us to God.
Pre-eminence belongs to the Jesus prayer because it unites the soul with our Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus is the only door to union with God, which is the aim of prayer.
The Lord taught me to love my enemies. Without the grace of God we cannot love our enemies. Only the Holy Spirit teaches love, and then even devils arouse our pity because they have fallen from good, and lost humility in God.
Suppose you have ordered yourself not to eat fish; you will find that the enemy continually makes you long to eat it. You are filled with an uncontrollable desire for the thing that is forbidden. In this way you can see how Adam's fall typifies what happens to all of us. Because he was told not to eat from a particular tree, he felt irresistibly attracted to the one thing that was forbidden him.
A great effort and much toil are needed in prayer before we can reach a state in which our mind is no longer troubled, and so attain the inward heaven of the heart where Christ dwells. As St. Paul says, 'Do you not realize that Christ dwells within you, unless you are worthless?' (cf. 2 Cor. 13:5).
One of the most mysterious anticipations of the Orthodox Church is the contemplation of the 'Protecting Veil of the Mother of God,' of Her constant standing in prayer for the world, surrounded by all the saints, before the throne of 'God. 'Today the Virgin stands in the Church and with hosts of saints invisibly prays to God for us all; angels and high priests worship; apostles and prophets embrace each other-it is for us that the Mother of God prays unto the Eternal God!' Thus the Church remembers the vision which was once seen by St. Andrew, the fool for Christ's sake. And that which was then visibly revealed remains now and will stand for all ages. The 'Contemplation of the Protecting Veil' of the Mother of God is a vision of the celestial Church, a vision of the unbreakable and ever-existent unity of the heavenly and the earthly Church.
Our enemies (demons) fell because of their pride, and call us to follow them, and bring us feelings of praise. And if your soul accepts that praise, then grace will depart, until the soul becomes humble again. And so all your life you must learn the humility of Christ.
The Saints in Heaven through the Holy Spirit behold the glory of God and the beauty of the Lord's Countenance. But in this same Holy Spirit they see our lives too, and our deeds. They know our sorrows and hear our burning prayers. When they were living on earth they learned of the love of God from the Holy Spirit: and he who knows love on earth takes it with him into eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, where love grows and becomes perfect. And if love makes one unable to forget a brother here, how much more must the Saints remember and pray for us!
She dwells in heaven and continually beholds the glory of God, yet she does not forget us, poor wretches that we are, and spreads her compassion over the whole earth and all peoples. And this most pure Mother of His the Lord has bestowed on us. She is our joy and our expectation. She is our mother in the spirit, and kin to us by nature as a human being, and every Christian soul leaps to her in love.
The more wood you pile on a fire the more heat you get, and thus it is with God - the more you think on Him the more you are fired with love and fervor towards Him. He who loves the Lord is always mindful of Him, and remembrance of God begets prayer.
We must always pray to the Lord for peace of soul that we may the more easily fulfill the Lord’s commandments; for the Lord loves those who strive to do His will, and thus they attain profound peace in God.
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.
Obedience is necessary not only for monks, but for all people. Even the Lord was obedient. Proud and self-assured do not let grace reside within them, and therefore they never have internal peace, whereas the soul of the obedient easily accepts the grace of the Holy Spirit, bringing with it joy and serenity.
Do all in your power not to fall, for the strong athlete should not fall. But if you do fall, get up again at once and continue the contest. Even if you fall a thousand times because of the withdrawal of God's grace, rise up again each time, and keep on doing this until the day of your death. For it is written, 'If a righteous man falls down seven times' - that is, repeatedly throughout his life - 'seven times shall he rise again' [Prov. 24:16].
