When you see that you’re making no progress in your spiritual life, don’t despair. But neither should you be content with whatever progress you may have already made.
—Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Mount Athos
Category: FAITH
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May God allow you to participate in that wondrous picture of a lamb led to the slaughter, with the knife placed at its throat while it is calm and silent. It is silent because its owner is the one slaughtering it; it trusts him, because he was the one who fed it. How incredible that we learn from lambs and sheep! O Lord, what is this amazing example that You have placed in animals for us? Can you believe that Christ was symbolized as a lamb led to the slaughter? I myself have many times seen a lamb being prepared for slaughter: it exhibits the utmost calmness. You tie its legs, but it doesn’t move; you place the knife, and it doesn’t move. It trusts the person who is its owner, and feeder, and caretaker. Ah, beloved, let us trust exceedingly that the One who shepherds us is the One who will “slaughter” us. It is not at all the work of our adversary; for as He said, “You would have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.” The knife descends from above. The nails were driven by a heavenly hand, and the hammer was sanctioned by the Father, who permitted the Crucified One to be hung on the Cross. Man himself can never bring you to be slaughtered, or harm your reputation, or steal your rights, unless it be allowed from above. Step forward, therefore, and fear not, but accept the cross and the knife—just like your Lord.
—Matthew the Poor, Words For Our Time: The Spiritual Words of Matthew the Poor -
I don’t know of a single person who after meeting Father Raphael did not afterwards decisively change and turn back to the spiritual life. This is even though, to be honest, Father Raphael could not even manage to utter the simplest of sermons.
Everyday Saints and Other Stories
Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov -
Wasn’t this conviction also in you, Sisters- this first impulse that caused you to abandon everything and dedicate yourselves to the Lord? At any rate, that’s how it should have been. The difference between you and holy Catherine is that Catherine, having understood the lack of fulfillment in the way of life surrounding her, still had to seek for better ways, for the One in Whom she could find this fulfillment. You, having felt the thirst for what is better, knew in advance that the satisfaction of this thirst is possible only in the Lord, Who is calling all: Let him who thirsts come to Me and drink (John 7:37). Therefore, together with all this, as your coolness towards your surroundings grew, so also grew your desire for the Lord.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, Kindling the Divine Spirit -
The external image remains the same, but the inward image is already different. I want to say that the dissatisfaction with the usual course of life, the desire for what is better, the conviction that the best of everything can be acquired only in the Lord, the deep, warm love towards Him, the decision to serve Him alone and the readiness to sacrifice everything for Him, so as to please Him—all this should characterize your life, your spirit, constantly making it alive and bringing it into motion.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, Kindling the Divine Spirit
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The wind blows where it wills; you hear its voice but do not know whence it comes and whither it goest (cf. John 3:8). So does it also occur with anyone who is abandoning the world. In a similar way, the beginning of anyone who undertakes the monastic life is surrounded with signs. Those who begin monasticism know about this. It is more than a desire that entices one toward this life, though this desire is the root of it all. It so happens that there are other occurrences in which the finger of God is clearly seen.
They later serve as hope-bearing supports for the completion of what has been begun, and they convince one to set out and bring to completion one’s purpose. It is impossible to describe what precisely occurs. Everyone has something known only to herself, and only to herself it appears to be quite unusual.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, Kindling the Divine Spirit
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When you have decided that a thing ought to be done and are doing it, never avoid being seen doing it, though the many shall form an unfavorable opinion about it. For if it is not right to do it, avoid doing the thing; but if it is right, why are you afraid of those who shall find fault wrongly?
—Epictetus, Enchiridion -
There is something pleasing and salutary in someone’s having had ill-luck in his first love, when he has come to know its pain but still kept true to his love, still kept faith in this first love; there is something nice about it when, in the course of years, he sometimes now recalls it quite vividly, and although his soul has been sound enough to, so to speak, take leave of that kind of life in order to dedicate itself to something higher, there is something pleasing about his then remembering it sadly as something that may have fallen short of perfection but was very beautiful none the less.
Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
Søren Kierkegaard -
Unhappy individuals who hope never have the same pain as those who remember. Hoping individuals always have a more gratifying disappointment. The unhappiest one will always, therefore, be found among the unhappy rememberers.
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This is what it amounts to: on the one hand, he constantly hopes for something he should be remembering, his hope is constantly disappointed, but on its being disappointed he discovers that the reason is not that the goal has been moved further on but that he has gone past it, that it has already been experienced, or is supposed to have been, and has thus passed over into memory.
Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
Søren Kierkegaard
SO GOOD QUOTES 