“But now your possessions are more a part of you than the members of your own body, and separation from them is as painful as the amputation of one of your limbs. Had you clothed the naked, had you given your bread to the hungry, had your door been open to every stranger, had you... Continue Reading →
He Who Sustains All Came to Birth
"The lofty one become like a little child, yet hidden in Him wasa treasure of wisdom that suffices for all. He was lofty but he sucked Mary's milk, and from His blessings all creation sucks. He is the Living breast of living breath; by His life the dead were suckled, and they revived.Without the breath... Continue Reading →
We Are Our Own Birth Givers
"Now, it is certainly required that what is subject to change be in a sense always coming to birth. In mutable nature nothing can be observed which is always the same. Being born, in the sense of constantly experiencing change, does not come about as the result of external initiative, as is the case with... Continue Reading →
Pleasing the crowd
"In trying to please the crowds, you shall become like the crowds."
A Womb Enclosed You and Yet The Heavens Cannot Contain You
"A womb enclosed You, yet how can a word be sufficient for You? A womb carried You, yet who does not fear to speak of You?Arms carried You, but for someone to speak of You is audacious; breasts have nourished You, yet not to marvel [at You] is an ingratitude.Heaven stood in awe, it diminished,... Continue Reading →
More than Meets the Eyes: Icons, Ascesis and The Deception of Empiricism
Icons teach us not to look on reality as what we see but perceive its deeper reality. Asceticism in turn trains our spiritual perceptions to perceive reality properly in order to lead us to God.
Seek what pleases God
"Do not set your will on having your affairs turn out as it seems best to you, but rather as it pleases God. Then you will be untroubled and thankful in your prayer." Evagrius of Pontus, On Prayer, 89
Prayer is Communion with God
Prayer is a communion of the mind with God. What sort of state does the mind need so that it can reach out to its Lord without turning back and commune with him without intermediary?If Moses, when he tried to approach the earthly burning bush, was held back until he removed the sandals from his... Continue Reading →
God has made us for Virtue
"I wish, above all things, that you understand that no one has the power to do harm to the soul of the faithful Christian, not even the devil himself. Not only is it a wonderful thing that God has made us impervious to all treachery, but that He has fitted us for the practice of... Continue Reading →
Let us boast in The Cross
"Let us not be ashamed of the Cross of Christ. But even though another hide it, do you seal it openly on your brow, that the demons, seeing the royal sign, may tremble and flee far away. Make this sign when eating and drinking, when sitting, lying down, rising, speaking, or walking; in a word,... Continue Reading →
The Human Being as Divine Song
"If, then, the orderly arrangement of the cosmos as a whole is a musical harmony, ‘whose designer and maker is God' (Heb 11.10), as the apostle says, and man is a miniature cosmos, and this same man has also been made an image of the one who composed the cosmos, what reason knows in the... Continue Reading →
Evil is The Sickness of The Soul
We also possess natural virtues toward which there is an attraction of soul not from the teaching of men, but from nature itself. Thus, no lesson teaches us to hate disease, but we have of ourselves an aversion to suffering; so, too, a certain untaught rejection of evil exists in our soul. Every evil is... Continue Reading →
An Ancient Faith For a Modern World 