Repentance is the Mother of Life. It opens its door to us when we take flight from all things. By means of the intellects intuitions, repentance renews in ys the grace that we have lost after baptism by leading lax lives. By water and Spirit we have put on Christ, though we did not perceive His glory. Through repentance we enter into His delight by means of the knowledge of those extraordinary intuitions that replace causes to dawn within us.
He who is deprived of repentance is deprived of the delight to come. He who us close to all things is far from repentance. And he who is far from all with discernment repents in very truth.
By the love which the saints show for God on account of the things they suffer for His name’s sake (when they endure strains and do not forsake that which God loves) their hearts acquire the boldness to gaze toward Him without a veil and to beseech Him with confidence. Great is the power of bold prayer. For this reason, God allows His saints to be tried by every sorrow, then to experience anew and to prove His aid, and to understand how great a providence He has for them, for in their perils He is found to be their Redeemer.
I have said to you many times, devote yourselves to the study of Holy Scripture, the psalms and the writings of the Fathers and study them with Divine Eros. Look up every word in the dictionary and read clearly and correctly and with attention to the meaning and every last detail and punctuation. Find out how many times a word, such as for example, simplicity, occurs in the Holy Scripture. The light of Christ will flood your soul.
The good-hearted person who has no devious thoughts attracts the Grace of God. Above all – good hearted-ness and simplicity attract the grace of God. They are the pre-conditions for God to come and make His abode in us…
Simplicity and goodness, that is everything if you want to acquire divine grace.
When you find Christ you are satisfied, you desire nothing else, you find peace. You become a different person. You live everywhere, wherever Christ is. You live in the stars, in infinity, in heaven with the angels, with the Saints, on earth with people, with plants and animals with everyone and everything. When there is love for Christ, loneliness disappears. You are peaceable, joyous, full. Neither melancholy nor illness nor pressure, nor anxiety, nor depression, nor hell.
Christ is in all your thoughts, all your actions. You have grace and you can endure everything for Christ, and indeed with joy. Just as Ge suffered so you to can suffer unjustly. Did you choose Christ to avoid suffering? This is our religion for our soul to awake and love Christ and become holy- to give herself over to divine Eros. And so He too will love her.
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love : The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios
The Church is without beginning, without end, and eternal, just as the Triune God, her founder is without beginning, without end, and eternal. She is uncreated, just as God is uncreated. She existed before the ages, before the angels before the creation of the world – before the foundation of the world’ as the Apostle Paul says, ‘She is a divine institution and in her dwells the whole fullness of divinity. She an expression of the richly varied wisdom of God. She is the mystery of mysteries. She was concealed and revealed in the last of times. The Church remains unshaken because she is rooted in the wise providence of God.
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love : The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios (p 87)
We shouldn’t blackmail God with our prayers. We shouldn’t ask God to release us from something, from an illness, for example, or to solve our problems, but we should ask for strength and support from Him to bear what we have to bear. Just as He knocks discretely at the door of our soul, so we should ask discretely for what we desire and if the Lord does not respond, we should cease to ask. When God does not give us something that we ask for insistently, then He has His reasons. God too, has His ‘secrets’. Since we believe in his good providence since we believe that He knows everything about our lives and that He always desires what is good, why should we not trust Him? Let us pray naturally and gently, without forcing ourself and without passion. We know that past, present and future are all known, “open and laid bare” before God. As Saint Paul says, “before Him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to His eyes.” We should not insist, such persistence does harm instead of good. We shouldn’t continue relentlessly in order to acquire what we want. Rather we should leave things to the will of God.
Because the more we pursue something, the more it runs away from us. So what is required is patience, faith and composure. And if we forget it, the Lord never forgets, and if it is for our good, He will give us what we require, when we require it.
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love : The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios
When we have a relationship of absolute trust with Christ, we are happy and joyful. We possess the joy of Paradise. This is the secret. Then we can exclaim with Saint Paul, “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain and “it is no longer I who live, Christ lives in me.” Such marvelous words! Delightful! All things must be done simply and gently.
We must go on our own to God in simplicity and artlessness of heart. What does wise Solomon have to say? He says that we need simplicity. “Be mindful of the Lord in goodness and seek Him in simplicity of heart, for He is found with those who do not tempt Him.”
Simplicity is holy humility, that is absolute trust in Christ, when we give our whole life to Christ. In the Divine Liturgy we say, “we commend our whole life to Christ our God,” and at another point, ” To You, O Loving Master, we commend our whole life and hope, and we entreat you and pray and supplicate.”
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios
“I cant give you an example of what real obedience is. It’s not that we have a discussion about the virtue of obedience and then I say to you, : go and do a somersault” and you obey. That’s not obedience. You need to be entirely carefree and not thinking at all about the matter of obedience, and then suddenly you are asked to do something and you are ready to do it joyfully. If you are busy at work, and not at all in a state of vigilance, and readiness and someone humiliates your, then by your reaction you will show whether or not you have obedience.”
“My obedience was the outcome of love, not coercion. This blessed obedience benefitted me greatly. It changed me. I became sharp-witted, quick and stronger in body and soul. It made me know everyting. I must glorify God day and night for granting me the possibility of living in this way, in this life. Obedience is something I have poured over and studied minutely. The other things that God has given me in my life came on their own. The gift of clear sight was also given me by God on account of obedience. Obedience shows love for Christ. And Christ especially loves the obedient. That is why He says, I love those who love Me, and those who seek me will find grace. Everything is written in Holy Scripture but in a concealed manner.
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love : The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios
Christ is the summit of desire, there is nothing higher. All sensible things lead to satiety, but with God there is no satiation. He is everything. God is the summit of desire. No other joy, no other beauty, nothing else can rival Him. What is higher than the highest?
Saint Porphyrios
Wounded by Love : the Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios
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