Nikon Vorobiev: “
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“The Lord alone can cleanse the soul from former impurities. And if, without murmuring but with thanksgiving to God, you endure your bodily illness, you will thereby demonstrate your faith, your repentance and humility, and you will receive not only the forgiveness of those sins which you earlier committed but also help in the future for the struggle against bad inclinations, and after death—eternal life in communion with all the saints, and unspeakable joy.”
Abbot Nikon Vorobiev, Letters to Spiritual Children
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“The Lord allows us to be tossed by various passions in this life in order that we may hate these passions with all our heart, that we may look upon everything earthly as nothing, however precious and pleasant it may appear, and that we may long with all our hearts for God alone…”
St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
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“The Holy Spirit whom we worship is all-powerful, and in an astonishing way He brings into existence what does not as yet exist within us. The intellect that was previously defeated He now makes victorious; for the Paraclete who in compassion comes upon us from above ‘is higher than all’ (John 3:31), and He raises us above all natural impulses and demonic passions.”
St John of Karpathos, The Philokalia
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“The Holy Spirit, out of compassion for our weakness, comes to us even when we are impure. And if only He finds our intellect truly praying to Him, He enters it and puts to flight the whole array of thoughts and ideas circling within it, and He arouses it to a longing for spiritual prayer.”
Evagrios the Solitary, The Philokalia
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“A life lived in humility and with an irreproachable conscience brings peace, tranquility, and true happiness. But wealth, honor, glory and exalted position often serve as the cause of a multitude of sins, and such happiness is not one on which to rely..”
St. Makary of Optina
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“Do you not notice that, in his mania for culture, European man has transformed Europe into an idol-factory? Almost every cultural item has become an idol. Our era is, above all, an era of idol-worship. No other continent is so engulfed by idols as is contemporary Europe. Nowhere else are material things so revered, nowhere else do people live for them as much as in Europe. This is idol-worship of the worst kind, for it is the worship of clay. Tell me, does a man not worship clay when he selfishly loves his earthen flesh of clay, and persistently asserts: I am flesh, and flesh alone? Tell me, does European man not worship clay when he takes as his ideal a class, a nation or mankind as a whole?Book St Justin Popovich Man and the God-Man”
St. Justin Popovich
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“Love of the body is a sign of unbelief.” Faith frees the intellect from the categories of the senses and sobers it by means of fasting, by pondering on God and by vigils.”
St. Justin Popovich
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“’How is it that I think and do things that I don’t want or desire to think or do?’ I answered that everyone is that way, and so forth. Therefore, the more one conquers himself, the greater the reward that he will receive there in eternity. This is the Christian’s most essential duty, and for this one needs God’s help, which is received through prayer…”
St. Innocent of Alaska
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“We often conceive of worldly life as merely a kind of default existence that anyone who is not specially called to monasticism or ordination simply ends up leading. We assume that it is only the monk, nun or priest who has a special call, while the married woman, for instance, has merely been passed by. […] But we must not allow ourselves to approach it merely in these terms. Instead, every one of us should, indeed must, treat lay life as a calling just the way we think of monasticism and ordination. We must sit down with ourselves and with God in prayer to discern if life in the world really is what we are meant for, and if we discover that it is, we must reat this call with the same seriousness with which we would treat a call to a hermit’s life in the desert. We are not lay people simply because we happen not to be monks or priests. We are lay people because God wills that we lead a life weeking our salvation through the world.”
Daniel G. Opperwall, A Layman in the Desert: Monastic Wisdom for a Life in the World
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“God’s love for the biggest sinner is greater than the love of the holiest man for God”
Arsenie Boca
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Dover Beach 