“Always, in the midst of difficulties, I find Christ more easily and my Prayer is more fervent. You say you lose Him. I honestly don’t understand you. I must be a different kind of person.”
“True, one may know man’s final goal: communion with God. And one may describe the path to it: faith, and walking in the Commandments, with the aid of Divine Grace. One need only say in addition: here is the path – start walking!”
“Throw out of your head the idea that you can, through a comfortable life, become what you must be in Christ.”
“Be diligent and avoid idleness. For diligence is pleasing to God, so idleness on the contrary, as a source of every evil, is a sin very offensive to God.”
“Don’t be lazy. Descend. You will find life in your heart. There you must live.”
“Where there is Prayer and fasting, there are the demons.”
“Mercilessness to oneself, readiness to perform any favour to others and the surrender of oneself entirely to the Lord with a Prayerful abiding in Him – these are the creators of the Spiritual life.”
“The goal of true knowledge is to raise the Soul to God.”
“Nothing comes without effort. The help of God is always ready and always near, but is given only to those who seek and work, and only to those seekers who, after putting all their powers to the test, cry out with their whole heart: ‘Lord help us!'”
“You will achieve nothing by your own efforts alone; yet God will not give you anything unless you work with all your strength.”
“The object of our search is the fire of Grace which enters into the heart.”
“But your job is to work upon yourself: for this you are chosen; the rest is in the hands of God. He who humbles himself shall be exalted.”
“You should always choose those things that are hard and painful. Have no love for pleasures and comforts, which are unprofitable for the Soul… God alone should be your delight. He should be for you the most wonderful joy and everything else should be bitter by comparison.”
“The invincible weapon against all our enemies is humility.”
“A Soul untried by sorrows is good for nothing.”
“Remember that each of us has his own cross. The Golgotha of this cross is our heart: it is being lifted or implanted through a zealous determination to live according to the Spirit of God. Just as Salvation of the world is by the Cross of God, so our Salvation is by our crucifixion on our own cross.”
“Nothing good is acquired for free. Instead it is acquired later through tears and toil.”
“Pleasure is evidence of the wrong path, while sorrow is evidence of the right path. Whenever you think about this, rejoice, as crusaders of truth!”
“Destroy your wild lusts and passions, you will gratify God more, and you will work for Him more magnificently than if you scourge yourself until you issue blood or tire yourself out with fasting more than any elderly desert Hermit. For even if you redeem hundreds of Christian slaves from the unbelievers and liberate them, it will not save you, if you continue to be a slave to your passions. And no matter what work you perform, however wonderful, and with whatever labor and sacrifice you might achieve it, it will not guide you toward your goal, if you do not pay attention to your passions, allowing them the liberty to live and work in you.”
“Whatever you may be seeking, seek it with all your strength, but do not expect your own search and efforts to bear fruit of themselves. Put your trust in the Lord, ascribing nothing to yourself, and He will give you your heart’s desire.”
“At the very onset of even a slight sense of your sinfulness and the danger of remaining in it, delve ever deeper into yourself, and with even greater force of thought conquer yourself with threats and sobering ideas; using them, shake up and soften your insensitive heart, as a heavy hammer softens a rough stone.”
“Prayer of the heart comes when one makes an effort; to those who do not strive, it will not come.”
“A wise custom of the ancient Holy Fathers: when greeting each other, they didn’t ask about health or anything else, but rather about Prayer, saying ‘How is your Prayer?’ Prayer was considered by them to a be a sign of the spiritual life, and they called it the breath of the spirit. If the body has breath, it lives; if breathing stops, life comes to an end. So it is with the spirit. If there is Prayer, the Soul lives; without Prayer, there is no Spiritual life.”
“I presume that you negligently rushed to complete your Prayer rule, just to get by. Make it a rule, from now on, never to Pray negligently. Nothing is more offensive to God than this. It is better to leave out part of your Prayer rule and to complete the remainder reverently and with fear of God, than to do the whole Prayer rule, and do it negligently. It is even better to read but one Prayer, or fall on your knees and Pray in your own words, than to Pray negligently. If you Pray carelessly, there will be no fruit. Give yourself a thorough reprimand for such carelessness. Let this be clear to you: No one who prays earnestly and with attention ends Prayer without feeling the effect of Prayer. Oh, of what a blessing we deprive ourselves by allowing negligence in Prayer!”
“You must never be afraid, if you are troubled by a flood of thoughts, that the enemy is too strong against you, that his attacks are never ending, that the war will last for your lifetime, and that you cannot avoid incessant downfalls of all kinds. Know that our enemies, with all their wiles, are in the hands of our Divine Commander, Our Lord Jesus Christ, for Whose Honour and Glory you are waging war. Since He himself leads you into battle, He will certainly not suffer your enemies to use violence against you and overcome you, if you do not yourself cross over to their side with your will. He will Himself fight for you and will deliver your enemies into your hands, when He wills and as He wills, as it is written: ‘The Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee’ (Deut. 23:14).”
“If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where shall I, the sinner, appear? The burden and heat of the day I did not endure because of the weakness of my humanity. But, O Merciful God, count me with the fellows of the eleventh hour. For, behold, in iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother bore me. Therefore, I do not dare to lift up my eyes to Heaven; but rather, I rely on the abundance of Your Mercy and Love for mankind, crying out and saying, ‘God, forgive me, a sinner, and have mercy on me.'”
“Leaving the world is nothing other than cleaning up your entire external life, removing from it everything passionate and replacing it with something pure, which will not disrupt the Spiritual life, but rather aid it.”
“Fasting appears gloomy until one steps into its arena. But begin and you will see what light it brings after darkness, what freedom from bonds, what release after a burdensome life.”
