Man is made of the dust of the earth, but God so loved him, that He adorned him with His grace and fashioned him in the likeness of the Lord.
kindling Divine Love
The more wood you pile on a fire, the more heat you get, and thus it is with God – the more you think on Him, the more you are fired with love and fervour towards Him. He who loves the Lord is always mindful of Him and remembrance of God begets prayer.
Saint Silouan
intent on God
“We eat and drink every day, yet on the morrow our bodies need food and drink again. In like manner, the recollection of God’s bounties never wearies that soul, but disposes her still more to think on God.”
Saint Silouan
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength
If people kept Christ’s commandment, there would be paradise on earth, and with little labour man would suffice his needs, and the Divine Spirit would live in the souls of man, for He Himself seeks us and would dwell in us…
Saint Silouan the Athonite
ineffable joy
This is the paradise of the Lord: All will live in love, and their Christ like humility will make every man happy to see others in greater glory. The humility of Christ lives in the lowly ones – they are glad to be the least of men.
Saint Silouan the Athonite
sweeter Grace
When we love someone, we like to think about that person, talk about him, be with him. Now the soul loves the Lord as her Father, and Creator and stands before Him in awe and in love. In awe because He is the Lord, in love because the soul knows Him for her Father.
Saint Silouan the Athonite
true knowledge
The things of this earth we may learn with our minds, but knowledge of God and of all heavenly matters comes only through the Holy Spirit, and can not be learned merely with the mind.
Saint Silouan the Athonite
our nourisher and hope
The tree of life in the heart of paradise is Christ.
All men may know and approach this tree and find nourishment and feed on the Holy Spirit.
Saint Silouan the Athonite
What air is to the body, the spirit of God is to the soul.
As you breathe from the air the elements required to nourish your body, so likewise you breathe into yourself from the Spirit of God good inclinations and thoughts…
O Holy Trinity, our Nourisher and Hope!
St John of Kronstadt
My Life in Christ
machiavelli was wrong
“The Staretz believed that evil always proceeds by means of deceit, camouflaging itself as good, whereas good in order to realize itself does not need the cooperation of evil. Therefore as soon as wrong means – magic, lying, violence and the like – make their appearance one is entering a domain alien to the spirit of Christ. Good is not attained by evil means and the end does not justify the means.
Good not obtained by good means is not good.
This is the testament that we have received from the Apostles and Holy Fathers. Although good frequently triumphs and by its appearance rectifies evil this does not mean that evil has led to good and that good has come out of evil.
That is impossible.
But the power of God is such that, where it appears, it heals all things so wholly that no scar remains – the damage caused by evil is effaced – for God is the fullness of life and creates life from nothing”
from the book : The Monk of Mount Athos
Archimandrite Sophrony
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