Tag: Desert Fathers

Behold, this is the true and the Christian humility. In this you will be able to achieve victory over every vice, by attributing to God rather than to yourself the fact that you have won.

Do not seek the perfection of the law in human virtues, for it is
not found perfect in them. Its perfection is hidden in the Cross
of Christ.

The hour of death will come upon us, it will come, and we shall
not escape it. May the prince of this world and of the air (cf.
John 14:30; Eph. 2:2) find our misdeeds few and petty when he
comes, so that he will not have good grounds for convicting us.
Otherwise we shall weep in vain. ‘For that servant who knew his
lord’s will and did not do it as a servant, shall be beaten with
many stripes’ (cf. Luke 12:47).

Souls that love truth and God, that long with much hope and faith
to put on Christ completely, do not need so much to be put in re
membrance by others, nor do they endure, even for a while, to be
deprived of the heavenly desire and of passionate affection to the
Lord; but being wholly and entirely nailed to the cross of Christ,
they perceive in themselves day by day a sense of spiritual
advance towards the spiritual Bridegroom.

You cannot destroy the passions on your own, but ask God, and He
will destroy them, if this is profitable for you.

Faith and love which are gifts of the Holy Spirit are such great
and powerful means that a person who has them can easily, and with
joy and consolation, go the way Jesus Christ went. Besides this,
the Holy Spirit gives man the power to resist the delusions of the
world so that although he makes use of earthly good, yet he uses
them as a temporary visitor, without attaching his heart to them.
But a man who has not got the Holy Spirit, despite all his
learning and prudence, is always more or less a slave and
worshipper of the world.

Beguiling and deceptive is the life of the world, fruitless its
labor, perilous its delight, poor its riches, delusive its honors,
inconstant, insignificant; and woe to those who hope in its
seeming goods: because of this many die without repentance.
Blessed and mos blessed are those who depart from the world and
its desires.

Be strong in Me; and you, too, Andrew; just as you were the first to find Me, you were found by me; so find the one who has wandered; Do not forget your first skill; from it I shall educate you for this new art. Formerly, naked into the deep sea, now naked into life; Formerly, hunting with a fishing-rod, now taught to fish with the cross; Formerly, you used a worm as bait; now I order you to hunt with My flesh. I alone know what is in the heart.

Remember, O my soul, the terrible and frightful wonder: that your
Creator for your sake became Man, and deigned to suffer for the
sake of your salvation. His angels tremble, the Cherubim are
terrified, the Seraphim are in fear, and all the heavenly powers
ceaselessly give praise; and you, unfortunate soul, remain in
laziness. At least from this time forth arise and do not put off,
my beloved soul, holy repentence, contrition of heart and penance
for your sins.

I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I
said groaning, “What can get through from such snares?” Then I
heard a voice saying to me, “Humility.”