A guarded heart

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Administrator

104. The heart which is constantly guarded, and is not allowed to receive the forms, images and fantasies of the dark and evil spirits, is conditioned by nature to give birth from within itself to thoughts filled with light. For just as coal engenders a flame, or a flame lights a candle, so will God, who from our baptism dwells in our heart, kindle our mind to contemplation when He finds it free from the winds of evil and protected by the guarding of the intellect.
St. Hesychios the Priest, Philokalia V1.180

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Before baptism

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Administrator

Before holy baptism, grace encourages the soul towards good from the outside, while Satan lurks in its depths, trying to block all the intellect’s ways of approach to the divine. But from the moment that we are reborn through baptism, the demon is outside, grace is within. Thus, whereas before baptism error ruled the soul, after baptism truth rules it. Nevertheless, even after baptism Satan still acts on the soul, often, indeed, to a greater degree than before. This is not because he is present in the soul together with grace; on the contrary, it is because he uses the body’s humors to befog the intellect with the delight of mindless pleasures. God allows him to do this, so that a man, after passing through a trial of storm and fire, may come in the end to the full enjoyment of divine blessings. For it is written: ‘We went through fire and water, and Thou hast brought us out into a place where the soul is refreshed’ (Ps. 66.12. LXX).
St. Diadochos, Philokalia V1.279

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Two Gifts of Baptism

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Administrator

And St Diadochos writes: ‘Divine grace confers on us two gifts through the baptism of regeneration, one being infinitely superior to the other. The first gift is given to us at once, when grace renews us in the actual waters of baptism and cleanses all the lineaments of our soul, that is, the image of God in us, by washing away every stain of sin. The second – our likeness to God – requires our co-operation. When the intellect begins to perceive the Holy Spirit with full consciousness, we should realize that grace is beginning to paint the divine likeness over the divine image in us. …

Philokalia, Volume 4, P. 317

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Prayer is a vow

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Administrator

PRAYERS are those by which we offer or vow something to God, what the Greeks call evki, i.e., a vow……
We pray, when we renounce this world and promise that being dead to all worldly actions and the life of this world we will serve the Lord with full purpose of heart.
We pray when we promise that despising secular honors and scorning earthly riches we will cleave to the Lord in all sorrow of heart and humility of spirit.
We pray when we promise that we will ever maintain the most perfect purity of body and steadfast patience, or when we vow that we will utterly root out of our heart the roots of anger or of sorrow that worketh death.

John Cassian’s Conferences, The First Conference OF Abbot Isaac On Prayer, NPNP2.11

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The Three Virtues

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Administrator

17. The three most comprehensive virtues of the soul are prayer, silence and fasting. Thus you should refresh yourself with the contemplation of created realities when you relax from prayer; with conversation about the life of virtue when you relax from silence; and with such food as is permitted when you relax from fasting.

Philokalia V3.49 Ilias the Presbyter

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Paesius fought with his brother

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Administrator

173. One day when Abba Poemen was sitting down, Paesius fought with his brother till the blood ran from their heads. The old man said absolutely nothing to them. Then Abba Anoub came in and saw them, he said to Abba Poemen, ‘Why have you let the brothers fight without saying anything to them?’ Abba Poemen replied, They are brothers, and they will make it up again.’ Abba Anoub said, ‘What do you mean? You saw them behaving like this, and all you say is they will make it up again?’ Abba Poemen said to him, Try and think that inwardly I was not here to see it.’

Sayings of the Desert Fathers, B. Ward, p. 191

 

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Not to ask for other things

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Administrator

HOW WE OUGHT NOT TO ASK FOR OTHER THINGS, EXCEPT ONLY THOSE WHICH ARE CONTAINED IN THE LIMITS OF THE LORD’S PRAYER

YOU see then what is the method and form of prayer proposed to us by the Judge Himself, who is to be prayed to by it, a form in which there is contained no petition for riches, no thought of honors, no request for power and might, no mention of bodily health and of temporal life. For He who is the Author of Eternity would have men ask of Him nothing uncertain, nothing paltry, and nothing temporal. And so a man will offer the greatest insult to His Majesty and Bounty, if he leaves on one side these eternal petitions and chooses rather to ask of Him something transitory and uncertain; and will also incur the indignation rather than the propitiation of the Judge by the pettiness of his prayer.

Cassian’s conferences, The First Conference of Abbot Isaac, Chapter 24, NPNF2. 11 p. 396

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A high degree of purity

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Administrator

60. Someone told me of an extraordinarily high degree of purity. He said: ‘A certain man (St. Nonnus bishop of Heliopolis) on seeing a beautiful body, thereupon glorified the Creator, and from that one look he was moved to the love of God and to a fountain of tears. And it was wonderful to see how what would have been a cause of destruction for one was for another the supernatural cause of a crown.’ If such a person always feels and behaves in the same way on similar occasions, then he has risen immortal before the general resurrection.

St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 15

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Dislike of Self-display

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Administrator

From the Life of St Arsenios St Arsenios made it a rule never to discuss things in writing and never to send letters. This was not out of weakness or incapacity – how could it have been, seeing that he could speak eloquently with as much ease as others displayed when speaking in a normal way? But it was due to his long habit of silence and his dislike of self-display. For the same reason he took great care when in church or at any other gathering not to look at other people or to be seen by them; he would stand behind a column or some other obstruction and hide himself from view, remaining unseen and not mixing with others. This holy man and earthly angel acted like this because he too wanted to keep a strict watch on himself and to concentrate his intellect inwardly so that he could raise himself towards God without impediment.

St. Nikiphoros the Monk On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart, Philokalia V4.197

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How to conquer pride?

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Administrator

If you want to conquer pride, then whatever you do, say not that you do it by your own labours, or with your own strength. But if you fast or stand vigil or sleep on the bare ground or sing psalms, or serve in the altar or do a great number of prostrations, say that it was done with God’s help and protection, not by your own strength and effort.

St. Ephraim the Syrian, Spiritual Psalter #117

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