2021

Love is a good disposition of the soul which makes us prefer  knowing God over all else. But it’s impossible to acquire this love on a stable basis if we have a passionate attachment to some earthly thing. Saint Maximos the Confessor

If you have worldly knowledge, you can’t perfectly acquire spiritual knowledge and really feel it unless you reject the worldly knowledge. Saint Isaac the Syrian

When you’re in a dilemma, when you have to do something or answer somebody, ask the Lord to yourself: ‘What do you want me to do now, Lord?’. The answer will come straight away and you can say it out loud. If you don’t do what your conscience tells you, you won’t feel right. Elder Amvrosios Lazaris

Practical repentance consists of the pain, the lamentation and the tears ‘over our former sins’, and the lamentation over the virtues and gifts which Jesus gave us as our inheritance and which belong to all of us. Elder Iosif Vatopaidinos

The cross is deadly for those who don’t transform their own personal cross into the Cross of Christ, that is those who moan against divine providence, curse it    and surrender to hopelessness and despair. Such people detach themselves from their cross only to descend in their souls to eternal death, to the darkness of Hades. Saint Sergei Romantsiov of the Monastery of Glinsk

Take all your cares to God. He provides for you. Don’t be feeble and don’t get upset. He who examines the hidden depths of our souls knows your own desires and has the power to fulfil them as he knows best. Just ask of God and don’t lose courage. Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis

The moment comes for Holy Communion and you’re about to approach the altar. Believe firmly that Christ is present, the king of all. When you see the priest offering you the body and blood of the Lord, don’t think that it’s the priest doing so but believe rather that the hand outstretched is that of Christ. Saint John Chrysostom

The prayer eases the soul, makes it love everyone. Everybody seems good to the soul and nothing bothers it. Abbess Theosemni, Holy Monastery of Chrysopiyi, Hania, Crete

If we want to please God and, through faith, become his heirs, and be called his children, begotten by the Holy Spirit, we have to acquire, above all else forbearance and patience. We have to bear bravely the sorrows, the afflictions, and all the vicissitudes that find us. That is to say, we have to bear the bodily ills, all the different forms of suffering, the ridicule and the insults that befall us. Saint Efraim the Syrian