• “Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.”

    — Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You

  • “Often I regret what I’ve said, but I have never regretted my silence.”

    —St. Arsenius

  • “If God is speaking explicitly, you will know.”

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • God also knows what help matches each personality. And so it’s important for you to seek God as you are, because God will respond to you as you are. He’ll always move you towards truth, but He’s not gonna be like, Well, here’s the thing, bro, you need to now take a vow of silence. But you’re like Moses, and you just want to laugh and chill with people, you’re not Arsenius. Cool, right? He does do that.

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • If your weakness is cognitive, grace can fix that.

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • It is a grace. It is not that person’s intellect—it is God has gifted them of seeing with real sight — he graced them, he gifted them with something that doesn’t belong to them by nature.

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • “Pray more than you think.”

    —H.G. Bishop Basil

  • God does not immediately grant the grace and the refreshment and rejoicing of the Spirit, being patient with them,” in the sense of Luke 18: 7, i. e., being willing to spend time over the business, instead of hurrying it on, “and reserving the gift. This He does not idly, nor unseasonably, nor at random, but with unspeakable wisdom, for the testing of their free will, to see whether they have counted God faithful and true who promised” (XXIX. 2, cp. XLVII. 13).

    Fifty Spiritual Homilies of Saint Macarius the Egyptian
    Introduction
    A.J. MASON, D.D.

  • He arranges for the afflictions which make a man think of giving up the world. Then He teaches him that there is an inward renunciation to be made, as well as the outward. “And when thou deemest thyself to have done all by renouncing, the Lord taketh account with thee. ‘Why dost thou boast? Did not I create thy body and thy soul? Did not I make the gold and silver? What hast thou done?’ The soul begins to make confession, and to beseech the Lord and say, ‘All things are Thine. The house I am in is Thine. My clothes are Thine. From Thee is my food, and of Thee am I supplied for every need.’

    Fifty Spiritual Homilies of Saint Macarius the Egyptian
    Introduction
    A.J. MASON, D.D.

  • “That the war comes upon you is not your doing; but to hate it is; and then the Lord, seeing your mind, that you are striving … parts death from your soul” (XXVI.

    Fifty Spiritual Homilies of Saint Macarius the Egyptian
    Introduction
    A.J. MASON, D.D.