perfect love
“He has as yet no perfect love, whose disposition towards men depends on what they are like, loving one ad despising another for this or that, or sometimes loving and sometimes hating one and the same man. Blessed is the man who can love all men equally.”
Saint Maximos the Confessor
First Century on Love
finding meaning
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“People today are thirsty for spiritual renewal, but they don’t know where to look, where the spring is. They flock to secular psychologists and psychiatrists to find answers and meaning in their lives…. At the same time, so many people today ignore or are ignorant of the rich psychological tradition of the saints, the real psychologists.”
Kyriacos C. Markides
Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality
patient acceptance
“If you accept patiently what comes, you will always pray with joy.”
~
Evagrios the Solitary
cultivate love
“Love is the most perfect fruit of the Holy Spirit, and it emerges within one’s life after one cultivates all the other fruits enumerated by St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians (5: 22– 23): love, joy, peace , patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Authentic, divine love is a quality of the soul that manifests last, after the cultivation of all the other virtues, starting with self-mastery and self-control.”
Kyriacos C. Markides
Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality
on the soul
The human heart is not a splinter, and the human soul – not a cheap thing; it is more valuable than all the world. All the treasures on earth and in the universe are not worth one Christian soul.
Saint Anatoly
Living Without Hypocrisy: Spiritual Counsels of the Holy Elders of Optina
the light of Christ
“O Christ, the True Light that illumines and sanctifies every human being who comes into the world, may the brightness of your face become sealed in our souls so that we may behold the Ineffable Light , and guide our steps to follow your commandments through the intercession of your Most Holy Mother and all the saints. Amen.”
Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality
practice temperance
“We must not allow anything of temporal value to steal our hearts. Every time we direct our hopes toward earthly things we make a step backward on our journey toward God.”
Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality
striving toward mercy
Do you wish to commune with God? Strive to be merciful… a man should first of all begin to be merciful in the measure that our heavenly Father is merciful.
Saint Issac of Syria
preparing for Lent
Open to me, O Giver of Life, the gates of repentance : for early in the morning my spirit seeks Your holy temple. The season of the preparing for Lent begins with the above hymn. We are thus reminded that the purpose of Lent is to return to God, not simply to change our diet.
adapted from : Meditations for Great Lent
Vassilios Papavassiliou
gladsomelife.com 