• First, we must confess that God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth. Secondly, there can be no doubt that all who actually come to the knowledge of the truth and to salvation, do so not in virtue of their own merits but of the efficacious help of divine grace. Thirdly, we must admit that human understanding is unable to fathom the depths of God’s judgments”

    The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church
    Fr. Seraphim Rose

  • ​​Many of you, all of us have sins – that we can’t get over, we can’t change. Happens to all of us. Some of us have sins that are very pernicious, very shameful to us, very repetitive.

    Things that we can’t even whisper to ourselves, maybe not even whisper to the priest. And how do you get over such things?

    You cannot overcome your sins by your own efforts, and by prostrations, by repentance and all the rest. You can’t do it. It is by the grace of God that you overcome your sins. And God has to be in the heart for you to overcome your sins and God is love. So if we love, as well as do the repentance, absolutely. It’s all necessary.

    —Fr. Seraphim Holland

  • “How close God is to us when we come to recognize and to accept our abjection and to cast our care entirely upon HIm! Against all human expectation He sustains us when we need to be sustained, helping us to do what seemed impossible. We learn to know Him, now, not in the ‘presence’ that is found in abstract consideration – a presence in which we dress Him in our own finery – but in the emptiness of a hope that may come close to despair. For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair when, instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on the air. Hope is always just about to turn into despair, but never does so, for at the moment of supreme crisis God’s power is suddenly made perfect in our infirmity. So we learn to expect His mercy almost calmly when all is most dangerous, to seek Him quietly in the face of peril, certain that He cannot fail us though we may be upbraided by the just and rejected by those who claim to hold the evidence of His love.”

    —Thomas Merton

  • “Faith can be viewed from three dimensions or sources: faith that comes through the witness of others, faith that expands through our own experiences, and faith received as an infusion of Gods grace to the soul through our obedience and cooperation.”

    All That I Have Is Yours: 100 Meditations with St. Pope Kyrillos VI on the Spiritual Life
    Kyrillos Ibrahim

  • “Virtue can exist at a natural level whereby one makes an effort and perseveres in choosing to do good. But there also exists a supernatural level of virtue in which divine grace comes to man’s aid in overcoming his sinful nature and raising him to Christ-like stature.”

    All That I Have Is Yours: 100 Meditations with St. Pope Kyrillos VI on the Spiritual Life
    Kyrillos Ibrahim

  • “It is good that you do not sin. If you do sin, then it is good that you do not delay repentance. If you repent, then it is good that you do not return to sin. If you do not return, then it is good that you know this is with God’s help. If you know, then it is good that you thank Him for the state that you are in.”

    —St. Basil the Great

  • It is not possible or within a man’s

    competence to root out sin by his own

    power. To wrestle against it, to fight

    against it, to give and receive blows, is

    thine; to uproot is God’s.

    —Saint Macarius

  • But on the other hand, from the divine perspective, nothing a human being can do forces God’s hand or makes God reveal Himself. When the time is right, when everything is ready, then God comes to us. God comes to us very seldom as a rushing wind or a bright light, but God comes to us most often as a gentle breeze, as an apprehension of some profound beauty resonating deeply in our psyche, in our souls. God comes to us and if we are ready, we perceive Him in some small way, in a way that we can never forget or deny, but almost always in a way that we cannot explain or defend.

    A Small Affliction Born For God’s Sake
    ARCHPRIEST MICHAEL GILLIS

  • Once you have grace, you are free. Without it, you cannot help doing the things you know you should not do, and that you know you don’t really want to do.

    —Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

  • But on the other hand, from the divine perspective, nothing a human being can do forces God’s hand or makes God reveal Himself. When the time is right, when everything is ready, then God comes to us. God comes to us very seldom as a rushing wind or a bright light, but God comes to us most often as a gentle breeze, as an apprehension of some profound beauty resonating deeply in our psyche, in our souls. God comes to us and if we are ready, we perceive Him in some small way, in a way that we can never forget or deny, but almost always in a way that we cannot explain or defend.

    A Small Affliction Born For God’s Sake
    ARCHPRIEST MICHAEL GILLIS