Those who have not found Christ live in this life without hearty faith; they think and care more about worldly things—how to enjoy themselves, how to eat and drink pleasurably, how to dress exquisitely, how to satisfy their carnal desires, how to kill time, with which they do not know what to do, though time seeks them and, not finding them, quickly flies away before their eyes. Day flies away after day, night after night, month after month, year after year, until, finally, the last terrible hour strikes, and they hear a voice: “Stop, the course is finished; your time has been lost; your sins and iniquities have preceded you; they will fall upon you with all their power, and will crush you with their weight eternally.”
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
Category: AVARICE & ALMSGIVING & MINIMALISM
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What vanities, what foolish fancies often occupy most of us, even in sight of the highest, the most important objects of faith, in sight of the greatest holiness. For instance, when a man stands before the icons of the Lord, of the Mother of God, of an Angel, of an Archangel, of one or a whole assembly of Saints, at home or in the temple, and, sometimes, instead of prayer, instead of laying aside, at this time, in this place, all worldly cares, he casts up his accounts and reckonings, goes over his expenses and receipts, rejoices at the gain, and grieves at the loss of profits, or the failure of some undertaking (without, of course, a single thought of spiritual profit or loss), or else he thinks evil of his neighbour, exaggerating his weakness, his passions, suspecting him, envying him, judging him, or if it is in church, he looks at the faces of those, standing near him, also how they are dressed, who is nice looking, and who not, or making plans what he shall do, in what pleasure or vanity he will spend the day, and so on. And this often happens at the time when the greatest, the most heavenly Sacrament of the Eucharist, that is, of the most-pure Body and Blood of our Lord, is being celebrated; when we ought to be wholly in God, wholly occupied in meditations on the mystery accomplished for our sakes, of the redemption from sin, from the eternal curse and death; and on the mystery of our being made godly in the Lord Jesus Christ. How low we have fallen, how earthly-minded we have become, and from what does it all proceed? From inattention, and the neglect of our salvation, from attachment to temporal things, from weakness of faith, or unbelief in eternity.
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ -
…listen to the cause: for a small gain they travel far; for eternal life many will scarcely lift a foot from the ground. They seek a petty reward, and sometimes fight shamefully in law courts for a single piece of money. They are not afraid to work day and night for a trifle or an empty promise. But, for an unchanging good, for a reward beyond estimate, for the greatest honor and for glory everlasting, it must be said to their shame that men begrudge even the least fatigue. Be ashamed, then, lazy and complaining servant, that they should be found more eager for perdition than you are for life, that they rejoice more in vanity than you in truth.
—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ -
As a child is indifferent to whatever clothes are put on it, so also the Christian, an infant in Christ, should be indifferent to the variety, richness, and beauty of his earthly garments, considering Christ, our God, his best and incorruptible garment; for an attachment to expensive, fine clothes is peculiar to the children of this world and to the heathen…
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ p.158 -
“Remember always: if your way of life is hard and sorrowful, it is correct; but if you live in comfort, wealth and honour, and still more, in carnal pleasures, you are on the road to perdition. It is quite impossible to attain serenity of mind without enduring many sorrows and depression and for many years.”
—Father Ilian of Mount Athos -
As the British philosopher Bertrand Russell put it in The Conquest of Happiness (1930):
A generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow processes of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers as though they were cut flowers in a vase.
In 1918, Russell spent four and a half months in Brixton prison for ‘pacifist propaganda’, but found the bare conditions congenial and conducive to creativity:
I found prison in many ways quite agreeable … I had no engagements, no difficult decisions to make, no fear of callers, no interruptions to my work. I read enormously; I wrote a book, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy … and began the work for Analysis of Mind … One time, when I was reading Strachey’s Eminent Victorians, I laughed so loud that the warder came round to stop me, saying I must remember that prison was a place of punishment.
Boredom is but a window to a sunny day beyond the gloom -
“He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory -
Therefore despise the swellings and the diseases of a disordered life and a proud vanity; be troubled for no outward thing beyond its merit, enjoy the present temperately, and you cannot choose but be pleased to see that you have so little share in the follies and miseries of the intemperate world.
—Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Anglican bishop, who wrote some of the greatest devotional works in the English language.
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If men did but know what felicity dwells in the cottage of a virtuous poor man, how sound his sleeps, how quiet his breast, how composed his mind, how free from care, how easy his provision, how healthful his morning, how sober his night, how moist his mouth, how joyful his heart, they would never admire the noises and the diseases, the throng of passions, and the violence of unnatural appetites, that fill the houses of the luxurious and the heart of the ambitious.
—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, The House of Feasting .The Whole Works of the Rt. Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1 -
“That’s kind of their first go-to question, and I just tell them: this is not a project about hygiene. I wash it as needed. I come to work clean. Lots of people wear uniforms and they are not assumed to be dirty. But the minute that there is no uniform policy and somebody voluntarily chooses to wear the same thing everyday, suddenly that’s not socially acceptable, and I think that element of our culture is worth thinking about.”
—Julia Mooney, Here’s why a New Jersey middle school teacher is wearing the same dress for 100 days
SO GOOD QUOTES 