Prayer is food for the soul. Do not starve the soul, it is better to let the body go hungry. Do not judge anyone, forgive everyone. Consider yourself worse than everyone in the world and you will be saved. As much as possible, be more quiet.
Featured image: St. Joseph of Optina. source
There are saints who were very anxious, who had nervous tics, and also those who were very brusque. Others were exceptionally slow. Some saints had physical defects. What makes a saint is not outward perfection, it’s that the old man is conquered on the inside. The saints are not yet totally transfigured, and the old man continues to be visible on the outside. These appearances can trick us and hide their inner reality from us.
Featured image: source
A man deadened by the passions is impervious to advice and will not accept any spiritual correction.
– St. Thalassios the Libyan, “On Love, Self-control and Life in Accordance with the Intellect.” Philokalia, Vol. 2
Possibly a contentious unbeliever will maintain that we worship images in our churches and are convicted of praying to lifeless idols. Far be it from us to do this. Faith makes Christians, and God, who cannot deceive, works miracles. We are not content with mere colored pictures. With the material picture before our eyes we see the invisible God through the visible representation, and glorify Him as if present, not as a God without reality, but as a God who is the essence of being. Nor are the saints whom we glorify fictitious. They are living with God, and their spirits being holy, they help, by the power of God, those who deserve and need their assistance.
Featured image: The Mar-Saba Monastery (Monastery of St. Sava the Sanctified) where St. John of Damascus served as a hieromonk, and reposed. source
Do not undertake to explain the Gospels or the other books of Holy Scripture yourself. The Scriptures were not expressed arbitrarily by the prophets and apostles, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. How mindless then is it to explain them arbitrarily? The Holy Spirit, having expressed the Word of God through the prophets and apostles, explained it through the Holy Fathers. Both the Word of God and its explanation are a gift of the Holy Spirit. The holy Orthodox Church and its true children accept only this patristic interpretation!
– St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, On Reading the Gospel
Featured image: Orthodox priests at Sinai, 1923. From the G. Eric and Edith Matson Collection. Library of Congress
Do not try to embark on the higher forms of contemplation before you have achieved complete dispassion, and do not pursue what lies as yet beyond your reach…Do not pursue theology beyond the limits of your present state of development: it is wrong for us who are still drinking the milk of the virtues to attempt to soar to the heights of theology, and if we do so we will flounder like fledglings, however great the longing roused within us by the honey of spiritual knowledge.
– St. Theognostos, “On the Practice of the Virtues, Contemplation, and the Priesthood.” Philokalia, Vol. 2
Featured image: “Nasa Bro, Mo.” c. 1860-1900. Photographer Ole Tobias Olsen. National Library of Norway.
Filmmaker Robert Bruce tours the railroads and scenery of the Deschutes River Valley by way of an actor simulating a “hobo’s eye view.” 1918. source
If you are a friend of Christ you should have as friends persons who are of benefit to you and contribute to your way of life. Let your friends be men of peace, spiritual brethren, Holy Fathers. It is of such that our Lord was speaking when He said: My mother and brethren are those who do the Will of My Father Who is in Heaven. (Matthew 12:49-50).
– St. Theodoros the Great Ascetic of Edessa
Featured image: Mother Theodosia. source
Man is sublime when he cares for the living; man is more than sublime when he cares for the dead. A man often cares for the living out of selfishness. But what selfishness can there be in a man’s caring for the dead? Can the dead pay him, or express their gratitude?
Some animals bury their dead; giving them to the grave, they give them over to forgetfulness. But when a living man buries a dead one, he buries a part of himself with the dead man and returns home carrying a part of the dead man in his soul. This is especially clear – terribly clear – when a kinsman buries a kinsman, and a friend a friend.
Featured image: St. Nikolai with soldier, WWII