Category: Spirituality

“This life has been given to you for repentance;
do not waste it in vain pursuits.”

– Saint Isaac the Syrian

“Everyone must recognize that a man who attempts to dishonor an image which has been set up for the glory and remembrance of Christ, of His holy Mother, or one of His saints, is an enemy of Christ, of His holy Mother, and the saints .”

– Saint John of Damascene
(On Holy Images Part III)

“He gave us divinity, we gave Him humanity.”

– Saint Ephrem the Syrian
(Hymn on Faith v17)

“We should devote all our efforts for the benefit of our souls. We should strengthen our bodies only so that they might aid us in strengthening our souls…”

– Saint Seraphim of Sarov
(The Joy of the Holy)

“Come, wretched soul, with your flesh, confess to the Creator of all. In the future refrain from you former brutishness, and offer to God tears of repentance.”

– Saint Andrew of Crete
(The Great Canon)

“But let our leader in the discourse be my Christ (if thus I dare name Him) who inspires all hierarchical revelation…The aim of Hierarchy is the greatest possible assimilation to and union with God, and by taking Him as leader in all holy wisdom, to become like Him, so far as is permitted, by contemplating intently His most Divine Beauty.”

– Saint Dionysius
(The Celestial Hierarchy)

“Christian service fills the spirit with reverence, love and humility.”

– Fr Matthew the Poor
(If you Love Me)

“Do not despair…Had you not lived piously and endeavored to become united to God, the enemy would not have attacked and tormented you.”

– Saint John of Kronstadt
(from My Life in Christ)

“…he who only believes and does not love, lacks even the faith he thinks he has: for he believes merely with a certain superficiality of intellect and is not energized by the full force of love’s glory.
The chief part of virtue, then, is faith energized by love.”

– Saint Diadochos of Photiki
(Chapter 21, of the One Hundred Chapters)

“The mind which applies itself to apophatic theology thinks of what is different from God. Thus it proceeds by means of discursive reasoning. But in the other case, there is union. In the one case, the mind negates itself together with other beings, but in the other there is a union of the mind with God.
It is of this that the Fathers speak when they say,
‘The end of prayer is to be snatched away to God.’
This is why the great Denys says that through prayer,
we are united to God.”

– Saint Gregory Palamas
(Triads)