Beware of despair. You do not serve a tyrant, but your service is to a kind Lord, Who taking nothing from you, yet has given you all. And when you did not exist at all, He fashioned you so that you would be in that state in which you now are. Who is sufficient to render Him thanks for the fact that He has brought us into existence? O the immesurable Grace! Who can sufficiently honor Him with hymns? … God is very compassionate and ardently loves to give… He rejoices when a man offers Him prayer.
Do not chide anyone for any trespass, but think of yourself as accountable in all things and guilty of his fall. Do not refuse to do any lowly chore with humility and in no wise decline from doing it.
The man who is justly praised is not harmed thereby; but if praise seems sweet to him, he labors without recompense. The treasure of the humble is within him, and this is the Lord.
When a man overcomes justice by mercy, he is crowned though not with crowns awarded under the Law to the righteous, but with the crowns of the perfect who are under the Gospel. For the ancient Law also dictates that a man must give to the poor from his own means, and clothe the naked, and love his neighbor as himself, and forbids injustice and lying. But the perfection of the Gospel’s dispensation commands the following, “Give to every man that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.” And further, a man must not merely with joy suffer injustice as regards his possessions and the rest of the external things which come upon him, but he must also lay down his life for his brother.
Homily Four
“when a man becomes humble, at once mercy encircles him, and then his heart is aware of Divine help, because if finds a certain power and assurance moving in itself. And when a man perceives {the coming} of Divine help, and that it is this which aids him, then at once his heart is filled with faith, and he understands from this that prayer is the refuge of help, a source of salvation, a treasury of assurance, a haven that rescues from the tempest, a light to those who are in darkness, a staff of the infirm, a shelter in time of temptations, a medicine at the height of sickness, a shield of deliverance in ware, an arrow sharpened against the face of his enemies and to speak simple, the entire multitude of these good things is found to have its entrance through prayer.”
When a man knows that he is in need of Divine help, he makes many prayers. And by as much as he multiplies them, his heart is humbled, for there is no man who will not be humbled when he is making supplication and entreaty. “A heart that is broken and humbled, God will not despise.: There fore, as long as the heart is not humbled, it can not cease from wandering, for humility collects the heart.
Homily Eight
Blessed is the man who knows his own weakness, because this knowledge comes to him the foundation, the root, and the beginning of all goodness. For whenever a man learns and truly perceives his own weakness, at that moment he contracts his soul of every side from the laxity that dims knowledge, and he treasures up watchfulness in himself.
Saint Isaac the Syrian
Ascetical Writing of Saint Isaac the Syrian : Homily Eight
A fire can not be ignited with wet wood, nor can the divine fervour be kindled in a heart which loves ease.
The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian
there is a light that never goes out
“And Christ crucified rejoices when He sees us following Him, undaunted and not turning back. Then you should know that in pain and in mourning, in death and in poverty there is, within our hearts a lamp, a light that nobody can ever extinguish.”
Abbot Ephraim of Vatopedi Monastery : Mount Athos Greece
Video sermon on Lent’s Third Sunday Vespers
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