• When I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10) For he said the soul’s intensity is strong when the pleasures of the body are weakened.

    —Robert C. Gregg on St. Antony the Great
    Athanasius, The Life of Antony

  • His watchfulness was such that he often passed the entire night without sleep, and doing this not once, but often, he inspired wonder. He ate once daily, after sunset, but there were times when he received food every second and frequently even every fourth day. His food was bread and salt, and for drinking he took only water.

    —Robert C. Gregg on St. Antony the Great
    Athanasius, The Life of Antony

  • When you judge others, you judge God. Whether you’ve seen a thief, a loose woman, or a drunkard sprawled on the street, do not judge, because the Lord allowed their passions. Through these they should find the path to God—they should be humbled, see their own powerlessness, come to know the Lord, and repent. And are you pleasing to God? That means the Lord in His grace and mercy is restraining your passions. Know that if He lets them go you will fall into worse sins, and perhaps you won’t manage to climb out of those sins and you’ll perish. There for be humble and cautious. You saw that a person sinned, but did you see later how he repented? Then don’t judge! Like a thread passing through the eye of a needle, so man experiences the same sin that he judged in another. 

    —St. Gabriel the Fool for Christ of Samtavro

  • “Remember that, in the Biblical narrative, humanity’s estrangement from God is first manifested in relation to food. Our unruly appetite is a prime example of our enslavement to our own desires, of our addiction to getting what we want when and how we want it.”

    —Fr. Philip LeMasters, Fasting for Fulfillment

  • When life is full of troubles, people get the feeling that the curse and anger of God has come upon them. But when these trials have passed, they’ll see that God’s wonderful providence protected them meticulously in all facets of their existence. Thousands of years of experience, transmitted from generation to generation, tells us that, when God sees faith in the soul of people who are striving for His sake, as He did in the case of Job, He leads them into depths and heights that are inaccessible to others. The more complete and powerful people’s love and trust in God are, the greater will be the measure of their trial and the fulness of their experience, which can reach very great heights. It then becomes apparent that they’ve reached the boundary beyond which a human person cannot pass.

    —Saint Sophrony of Essex

  • “It is well known that obedience is the chief among the initiatory virtues, for first it displaces presumption and then it engenders humility within us.”

    —St. Diadochos of Photiki

  • “Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God. A lot of people are always concer“Ministry is the least important thing.  You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God.  A lot of people are always concerned about: ‘How can I help people?  Or help the youth come to Christ?  Or preach well?’  But these are all basically non-issues.  If you are burning with the love of Jesus, don’t worry—everyone will know.  They will say, ‘I want to get close to this person who is so full of God.’”

    —Henri Nouwen

  • “Fasting is a commandment that was given for human nature to observe from the beginning and the First-Created fell from there.”

    —Saint Isaac the Syrian

  • When God recedes in order to educate us, this brings great sadness, humility and even some measure of despair to the soul. The purpose of this is to humble the soul’s tendency to vanity and self-glory, for the heart at once is filled with fear of God, tears of thankfulness, and great longing for the beauty of silence.

    —St. Diadochus of Photiki

  • “It is useless to accuse those around us and those who live with us of somehow interfering with or being an impediment to our salvation and spiritual perfection… Spiritual or emotional dissatisfaction comes from within ourselves, from inexperience and from poorly conceived opinions we do not want to abandon, but which bring on doubt, embarrassment, and misunderstanding. All of this tires and burdens us, and brings us to a sorry state. We would do well to comprehend the Holy Fathers’ simple advice: If we will humble ourselves, we will find tranquility anywhere, without having to mentally wander about many other places, where we might have the same, or even worse, experiences.”

    — Saint Ambrose of Optina