Fight always with your thoughts and call them back when they wander away. God does not demand of those under obedience that their thoughts be totally undistracted when they pray. And do not lose heart when your thoughts are stolen away. Just remain calm, and constantly call your mind back. St. John of the Ladder

“Love for God begins to manifest itself and act in us when we begin to love our neighbor as ourselves and not to spare either ourselves or anything belonging to us for him, as the image of God; when we endeavor to serve him for his salvation in everything we can; when, for the sake […]

If Peter had not failed to catch anything during the night’s fishing (cf. Luke 5:5), he would not have caught anything during the day.  And if Paul had not suffered physical blindness (cf. Acts 9:8), he would not have been given spiritual sight.  And if Stephen had not been slandered as a blasphemer, he would […]

“When the Lord cried: “Lazarus!” the man awoke and lived. The Lord knows the name of each of us. If Adam knew the name of each one of God’s creatures, how could God not know each of us by name? Oh, sweet and life-giving voice of the only Lover of mankind! That voice can make […]

If a person doesn’t cultivate in himself the spirit of self-sacrifice then he thinks only of himself and doesn’t receive Divine Grace. The more a person forgets himself, the more God remembers him. Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain

More on the Prayer of St. Ephraim Finally, idle talk. Of all created beings, man alone has been endowed with the gift of speech. All Fathers see in it the very “seal” of the Divine Image in man because God Himself is revealed as Word (John, 1:1). But being the supreme gift, it is by […]

The Prayer of St. Ephraim. Lust of power! Strange as it may seem, it is precisely sloth and despondency that fill our life with lust of power. By vitiating the entire attitude toward life and making it meaningless and empty, they force us to seek compensation in, a radically wrong attitude toward other persons. If […]

On the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian The result of sloth is faint-hardheartedness. It is the state of despondency which all spiritual Fathers considered the greatest danger for the soul. Despondency is the impossibility for man to see anything good or positive; it is the reduction of everything to negativism and pessimism. It […]

The basic disease is sloth. It is that strange laziness and passivity of our entire being which always pushes us “down” rather than “up” — which constantly convinces us that no change is possible and therefore desirable. It is in fact a deeply rooted cynicism which to every spiritual challenge responds “what for?” and makes […]