The spiritual discipline of fasting is a tool for shifting the focus away from us and toward the Lord and our brothers and sisters in whom we encounter Him each day. If we distort fasting into a private religious accomplishment to prove how holy we are, we would do better not to fast at all. That would simply be a way of serving ourselves instead of God and those who bear His image and likeness. In Lent, our focus must be set squarely on Christ and His living icons, not on us. The fundamental calling of the Christian life is to become like our Lord, Who offered Himself up for the salvation of the world purely out of love. If we are truly in communion with Him, then we too must offer up ourselves for our neighbors. And as He taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan, there are no limits on what it means to be a neighbor to anyone who is in need, regardless of nationality, culture, or anything else. Those who limit their concern for people according to such standards place serving the kingdoms of this world before fidelity to the Kingdom of God.
There is a difference, Dearly Beloved Brethren, between the delights of the body and those of the soul, that the delights of the body, when we do not possess them, awaken in us a great desire for them; but when we possess them and enjoy them to the full they straightway awaken in us a feeling of aversion. But spiritual delights work in the opposite way. While we do not possess them we regard them with dislike and aversion; but once we partake of them we begin to desire them, and the
more do we hunger for them. In one case the appetite pleases, the reality brings displeasure; in the other it is the appetite [that] displeases, the reality delights us more and more. In the one case appetite leads to fullness, and fullness to disgust; in the other appetite begets fullness, and fullness in turn begets appetite. For spiritual delights, when they fill the soul, increase in us a desire of them; and the more we savor them, the more do we come to know what we should eagerly love.
The head of every good striving and the pinnacle of all corrections is to persevere in prayer, by which we may ever obtain, through entreaty of God, all the other virtues as well. By prayer those who are worthy partake of the sanctity of God and spiritual activity and the union of the mind with the Lord in unutterable love. He who constantly forces himself to endure in prayer is roused by spiritual love to Divine fervor and flaming desire towards God, and he receives, according to his measure, the grace of spiritual, sanctifying perfection.
Let the impatient be told what the Truth says to His elect: `In your patience you shall possess your souls.' Truly, we are so wonderfully created, that reason possesses the soul, and the soul possesses the body. But the soul is dispossessed of its right over the body, if it is not first possessed by reason. Therefore, the Lord has pointed out that patience is the guardian of our estate, for He taught us to possess ourselves in it. We, therefore, realize how great is the fault of impatience, seeing that by it we lose even the possession of what we are.
Have confidence in the compassion of our Creator. Reflect well on what you are now doing, and keep before you the things you have done. Lift up your eyes to the overflowing compassion of heaven, and while He waits for you, draw near in tears to our merciful Judge. Having before your mind that He is a Just Judge, do not take your sins lightly; and having also in mind that He is compassionate, do not despair. The God-Man gives man confidence before God.
Knowing the exact nature of everything, God permits each person to be tested according to his strength. As St. Paul puts it: 'God is to be trusted not to let you be tried beyond your strength, but with the trial He will provide a way out, so that you are able to bear it' (1 Cor. 10:13).
The sun rising over the earth creates the daylight; and the venerable and holy name of the Lord Jesus, shining continually in the mind, gives birth to countless intellections radiant as the sun.
There is a difference, Dearly Beloved Brethren, between the delights of the body and those of the soul, that the delights of the body, when we do not possess them, awaken in us a great desire for them; but when we possess them and enjoy them to the full they straightway awaken in us a feeling of aversion. But spiritual delights work in the opposite way. While we do not possess them we regard them with dislike and aversion; but once we partake of them we begin to desire them, and the more do we hunger for them. In one case the appetite pleases, the reality brings displeasure; in the other it is the appetite [that] displeases, the reality delights us more and more. In the one case appetite leads to fullness, and fullness to disgust; in the other appetite begets fullness, and fullness in turn begets appetite. For spiritual delights, when they fill the soul, increase in us a desire of them; and the more we savor them, the more do we come to know what we should eagerly love.
The lower you descend, the higher you ascend; and when, like the psalmist, you regard yourself as nothing before the Lord (cf. Ps. 39:5), then imperceptibly you will grow great. And when you begin to realize that you have nothing and know nothing, then you will become rich in the Lord through the practice of the virtues and spiritual knowledge.
The Antichrist must be understood as spiritual phenomenon..., why will everyone in the world want to bow down to him, obviously it is because there is something in him that responds to something in us, that something being lack of Christ in us, if we will bow down to him (God forbid that we do so) it will be because we feel an attraction to some kind of external thing which might even look like Christianity since Antichrist means the one that is in place of Christ or looks like Christ.
A lover of riches is never satisfied, no matter how many possessions he accumulates, but the more he acquires daily, the more his appetite increases; and a person forcibly pulled away from a stream of pure water before he has quenched his thirst feels even more thirsty. In a similar way, once one has experienced the taste of God, one can never be satisfied or have enough of it, but however much one is enriched by this wealth one still feels oneself to be poor. Christians do not set great store by
their own lives, but regard themselves rather as rightly set at nought by God and as everyone’s servants.
When we see sinners we must always weep for ourselves first over their failure. Perhaps we have fallen in the same way; or we can fall, if we haven't yet. And if the judgment of the teaching office must always eradicate vices by the power of discipline, we must nevertheless make careful distinctions: we should be uncompromising about vice, but compassionate to human nature. If a sinner has to be punished, a neighbor has to be supported. When he has nullified what he has done by his repentance, our neighbor is no longer a sinner. With the righteousness of God he turns against himself, and what the divine righteousness reproves he punishes in himself.
For as merchants on a voyage, though they find a wind to suit them and the sea calm, but have not yet reached the haven, are always subject to fear, lest suddenly a contrary wind should stir and the sea rise into billows, and the ship be in peril, so Christians, even if they have in themselves a favorable wind of the Holy Spirit blowing, are nevertheless yet subject to fear, lest the wind of the adverse power should rise and blow on them, and stir disturbance and billows for their souls. There is need therefore of great diligence, that we may arrive at the haven of rest, at the perfect world, at the eternal life and pleasure, at the city of the saints, at the heavenly Jerusalem, at the church of the firstborn (Heb. xii. 23.). Unless a man gets through these measures, he is under much fear, lest in the meantime the evil power should effect some fall.
Whenever we are filled with evil thoughts, we should throw the invocation of our Lord Jesus Christ in their midst. Then, as experience has taught us, we shall see them instantly dispersed like smoke in air. Once the intellect is left to itself again, we can renew our constant attentiveness and our invocation. Whenever we are distracted, we should act in this way.
