“Christian service fills the spirit with reverence, love and humility.”
– Fr Matthew the Poor
(If you Love Me)
Categories
Fr Matthew the Poor
Categories
Saint John of Kronstadt
“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)
Categories
Saint Gregory Palamas
“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)
“We shall not be deprived THEN of knowing or seeing, but…according to the measure which each has of the radiance and vision of light, both the knowledge and vision of God, and the recognition and knowledge of one another shall grow ever greater and more clear in joy inexpressible and rejoicing forever and ever.”
– Saint Symeon the New Theologian
(First Ethical Discourse)
“The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds.”
– Saint Maximus the Confessor
(Four Hundred Texts on Love)
“Besides the written Lives, and the many letters of spiritual instruction, a beautiful and powerful prayer was left to us by the holy elders of Optina. This prayer has become so essential to many people’s everyday lives that they often paste it into their prayer books, to be read every day along with the other morning prayers.”
-orthochristian.com
Categories
Saint Porphyrios
“Our religion is perfectly and profoundly conceived. What is simple is also what is most precious. Accordingly, in your spiritual life engage in your daily contest simply, easily, and without force. The soul is sanctified and purified through the study of the Fathers, through the memorization of the psalms and of portions of Scripture, through the singing of hymns and through the repetition of the Jesus Prayer.
Devote your efforts, therefore, to these spiritual things and ignore all the other things.”
– Saint Porphyrios (Wounded by Love)
Categories
Elder Proclu of Romania
“Do not fight against a person; we have to fight against the spirit of evil. Our fight is like this: We cannot do anything of our own strength, but the Holy Spirit helps us to the measure of our prayer with humility.”
– Monk Proclu
Categories
Elder Cleopa of Romania
“One of the foremost spiritual obligations that we have, both as monastics and as lay people, is to confess our sins. We must first recognize that we all sin against God, some more than others, but no one is without sins.”
– Elder Cleopa
“I will not pray for you unless you pray yourself.
– St Anthony “Sayings from the Desert Fathers”
Categories
The Jesus Prayer
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”
Orthodoxy of the Heart 
You must be logged in to post a comment.