• I am speaking of the selfishness of good people, devout people, those who have succeeded through spiritual exercises and self-denial in being able to make the proud profession before the altar of the Most High, “Lord, I am not like the rest of men.” Yes, we have had the audacity at certain times of our lives to believe we are different from other men. And here is the deepest form of self-deception, dictated by self-centeredness at its worst: spiritual egotism. This most insidious form of egotism even uses piety and prayer for its own gain.

    ….

    There is no limit to such self-deception. And the path, once entered upon, is so slippery that God has to treat us harshly to bring us back to our senses. But there is no other way of opening our eyes. It has to be painful. But often it isn’t enough. Disaster, illness, disappointment hover like birds of prey over the poor carcass that had the temerity to say, “Lord, I am not like the rest of men.” How can we possibly entertain the idea that we are different from other men, when we shout, cry, feel afraid, lack determination, and behave atrociously just like everybody else?

    Letters from the Desert
    by Carlo Carretto

  • Even the love of study can make people unbelievably selfish; the passion for research can make men as mad and blind as termites in their dark tunnel.

    Letters from the Desert
    by Carlo Carretto

  • Love is the fulfillment of the law and should be everyone’s rule of life; in the end it’s the solution to every problem, the motive for all good.

    Letters from the Desert
    by Carlo Carretto

  • and I repeat again St. Augustine’s words: “Love and do as you will.” Don’t worry about what you ought to do. Worry about loving. Don’t interrogate heaven repeatedly and uselessly saying, “What course of action should I pursue?” Concentrate on loving instead. And by loving you will find out what is for you. Loving, you will listen to the Voice. Loving, you will find peace.

    Letters from the Desert
    by Carlo Carretto

  • The discovery that I was nothing, that I was responsible for no one, that I was a man of no importance, gave me the joy of a boy on holiday

    Letters from the Desert
    by Carlo Carretto

  • “Three things the mind is enlightened with: doing good to those who wrong you, enduring what befalls you from your enemies, and abandoning looking at and envying those who are ahead of you in the world.“

    —Abba Arsenius
    Abba Arsenius – The Tutor of the Emperor’s Sons

  • When the blessed Arsenius was about to deliver his spirit the brethren saw him weeping, and they said unto him, “Are you also afraid, O father?” And he said unto them, “The dread of this hour has been with me in very truth from the time when I became a monk, and was afraid.” And so he died.

    Abba Arsenius – The Tutor of the Emperor’s Sons

  • When Abba Poemen heard of his repose, he said:
    Blessed are you, O Abba Arsenius, for you wept over yourself in this world. For he who does not weep for himself in this world must weep for ever in the next. He may weep here voluntarily, or there because of the punishments [which he will receive], but it is impossible for a man to escape weeping either here or there.

    Abba Arsenius – The Tutor of the Emperor’s Sons

  • The saint sees that one hour of sleep per day is sufficient for a monk. While many people see that a person must sleep for eight hours per day, some specialists and those who have experience assert that the body, through habit, may be satisfied with less than that, without any effect on the productivity of the person, just like the stomach which gets used to being small or large in size.

    Abba Arsenius – The Tutor of the Emperor’s Sons

  • If people don’t either love or hate your work, you just haven’t done all that much.

    —Tinker Hatfield