• on monasticism

    He was his mother’s little boy; although he was a grown man, the umbilical cord was still intact. He was tied to his mother, tied to the family, tied to the neighborhood, tied to the friends, tied to the country, tied to his life. This is one of the most troublesome personality types when it comes to obeying the call. Its possessor is extremely weak. His eyes are riveted on the past. The smallest hardship or the slightest rebuke makes him shudder. He constantly thinks of forsaking the call and going back. To put it bluntly, he is not a man.

    —Matthew the Poor, Words For Our Time: The Spiritual Words of Matthew the Poor

  • on monasticism

    Woe to the man who offers those last goodbyes to his father and mother! They will remain stuck like an odor to his clothes and to his mind at all times. He who returns to say goodbye to his family does not actually say goodbye to them but to the Kingdom. He can no longer enter the Kingdom with the same intensity of zeal and power. And if he goes out to serve while still conscious of an attachment to his family, it becomes a hundred times harder to sever them than if he had done so while he was in the world. It requires a heavy knife to cut the emotional ties that bind a person if already on the road; but if he cuts them while still near his family, the issue is sealed.

    —Matthew the Poor, Words For Our Time: The Spiritual Words of Matthew the Poor

  • on monasticism

    “Fine. Go, say your last goodbyes to your mother and family.” But ah, not one was able to say a last goodbye to his mother and peel himself away from her bosom again! That last goodbye will remain fastened to your mind even until your beard greys. But if you were able to leave the world without a last parting greeting to anyone, then the call of Christ will be able to gain you even while in the world. And every time the world comes to mind, you will remember your severance from it, as though by the clean cut of a knife.

    —Matthew the Poor, Words For Our Time: The Spiritual Words of Matthew the Poor

  • If a person truly and utterly wants something, even against his own best interests, the Lord will patiently and at length through various people and new circumstances plant obstacles and try to dissuade the person from the needless and fatal goal. But when we are stubbornly implacable in our desires, then God steps aside and lets our blind and powerless freedom take its course.

    Everyday Saints and Other Stories
    Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov

  • 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

  • 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

  • When you withdraw from the world your business is to talk with yourself, not to have men talk about you. But what shall you talk about? Do just what people are fond of doing when they talk about their neighbours,—speak ill of yourself when by yourself; then you will become accustomed both to speak and to hear the truth. Above all, however, ponder that which you come to feel is your greatest weakness.

    —Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

  • Did nature give us bellies so insatiable, when she gave us these puny bodies, that we should outdo the hugest and most voracious animals in greed? Not at all. How small is the amount which will satisfy nature? A very little will send her away contented. It is not the natural hunger of our bellies that costs us dear, but our solicitous cravings.

    —Seneca, Letters from a Stoic