However, in making the assertion that a certain service—in this case, raising children—can in fact be prayer, I am bolstered by the testimony of contemplatives themselves. Carlo Carretto, one of the twentieth century’s best spiritual writers, spent many years in the Sahara Desert by himself praying. Yet he once confessed that he felt that his mother, who spent nearly thirty years raising children, was much more contemplative than he was, and less selfish. If that is true, and Carretto suggests that it is, the conclusion we should draw is not that there was anything wrong with his long hours of solitude in the desert, but that there was something very right about the years his mother lived an interrupted life amid the noise and demands of small children.
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For years, while she is raising small children, her time is not her own, her own needs have to be put into second place, and every time she turns around some hand is reaching out demanding something. Years of this will mature most anyone. It is because of this that she does not need, during this time, to pray for an hour a day. And it is precisely because of this that the rest of us, who do not have constant contact with small children, need to pray privately daily.
Domestic Monastery
Ronald Rolheiser
Author: SO GOOD QUOTES
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Passion-free knowledge of divine things does not persuade the intellect to scorn material things completely; it is like the passion-free thought of a sensible thing. It is therefore possible to find many men who have much knowledge and yet wallow in the passions of the flesh like pigs in the mire. Through their diligence they temporarily cleanse themselves and attain knowledge, but then they grow negligent. In this they resemble Saul: for Saul was granted the kingdom, but conducted himself unworthily and was driven out with terrible wrath (cf. 1 Sam. 10-15).
—St Maximos the Confessor, Four Hundred Texts on Love -
He who cultivates the virtues for the sake of self-esteem also seeks after spiritual knowledge for the same reason. Such a man plainly does not do anything or discuss anything for the edification of others. On the contrary, he always seeks the praise of those who see him or hear him. His passion is brought to light when some of these people censure his actions or words. This distresses him greatly, not because he has failed to edify them – for that was not his aim – but because he has been humiliated.
—St Maximos the Confessor, Four Hundred Texts on Love -
A certain member of what was then considered the circle of the wise once approached the just Antony and asked him: “How do you ever manage to carry on, Father, deprived as you are of the consolation of books?” His reply: “My book, sir philosopher, is the nature of created things, and it is always at hand when I wish to read the words of God.”
Dragon’s Wine and Angel’s Bread: The Teaching of Evagrius Ponticus on Anger and Meekness
Gabriel Bunge -
What you should feel is the kind of feeling felt by a son, whose only concern is that his father should be pleased with him. It is not the feeling of the slave, whose only concern is to be saved from punishment.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Return To God -
Satan may allow us to talk about God for many hours, but he will never let us talk with Him, even for a few minutes.
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Clement of Alexandria furthers this notion by indicating that rewards in the afterlife will be dependent in part on one’s underlying motivation for why they performed any work for God: The same work, then, is different, depending on what prompted it. Was it because of fear, or was it accomplished because of love, faith, or knowledge? Rightly, therefore, their rewards are different.
Orthodox Afterlife
John Habib -
“We did all these things – all these miracles – in Your name. How is it that You say you don’t know us?” That is when He [the Lord] proceeds to say, “You didn’t know Me. You did these things for Me, but you didn’t know Me.”
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There’s a difference between doing something because you want to do versus because you have to.
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“A relationship must begin and develop in mutual freedom. If you look at the relationship in terms of mutual relationship, you will see that God could complain about us a great deal more than we do about Him. We complain that He does not make Himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve for Him, but what about the twenty-three and a half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer ‘I am busy, I am sorry’ or when we do not answer at all because we do not even hear the knock at the door of our heart, of our minds, of our conscience, of our life. So there is a situation in which we have no right to complain of the absence of God because we are a great deal more absent than He ever is.”
—Met. Anthony Bloom
SO GOOD QUOTES 