Daily Meditations Archives - Page 224 of 333

The Fifth Thursday of Great Lent: The Faithfulness of the Whore who Married the Governor & Detach Passion from the Image

04/14/2016

The Faithfulness of the Whore who Married the Governor Abbot John the Dwarf said: ‘If a king wanted to capture the town of his enemy, first of all he would cut off its water supply and prevent food from getting in. The enemies, dying of hunger, would surrender. In the same way we should treat the passions of the flesh. If someone lives in fasting and hunger, in a short while the enemies of his

The Fifth Wednesday of Great Lent: The Devil has not Full Power & The Devil’s Strategy

04/13/2016

The Devil has not Full Power Among the angelic powers the chief of the terrestrial order, the one to whom God had entrusted the task of looking after the earth, was not evil by nature, he had not received any trace of evil from his Creator. He was good. However, he did not maintain the light and the honour that God had given him. By a deliberate act of his own free will he rebelled

The Fifth Tuesday of Great Lent: How Weak the Wicked Are! & Sin is a Contagious Disease

04/12/2016

How Weak the Wicked Are! See for a moment how weak the wicked are. They cannot even reach the spot to which instinct is leading and almost pushing them. What would happen if they lacked even this help from nature, so strong as to seem irresistible? Look how impotent they are! They long for objects that are simple and of little account and yet they do not even succeed in attaining these. They indeed lack

The Fifth Monday of Great Lent: Accomplices & Right Use not Misuse

04/11/2016

Accomplices Inside us evil is at work suggesting unworthy inclinations. However, it is not in us in the same way as, to take an example, water mixes with wine. Evil is in us without being mixed with good. We are a field in which wheat and weeds are growing separately. We are a house in which there is a thief, but also the owner. We are a spring which rises from the middle of the

The Fourth Friday of Great Lent: Sin is in no Way the Fault of our Nature &God does not Judge by Quantity

04/08/2016

Sin is in no Way the Fault of our Nature ‘I am the victim of violence in my nature; you say. ‘I love Christ, yet my nature compels me to sin.’ If you were in fact compelled to sin, if you were the victim of violence, then you would be forgiven for it. On the other hand, if you sin through idleness, do not expect forgiveness. But let us look at the question a moment

The Fourth Thursday of Great Lent: But Why does God Put up with Evil in the World? & Why does God allow Temptation?

04/07/2016

But Why does God Put up with Evil in the World? Why does error have a free rein and why does God allow the wicked to disturb the existence of so many people? First of all, before trying to understand, we need to put ourselves in front of the incomprehensible wisdom of God. One who is firmly anchored in God does not suffer any loss, even if attacked by a thousand waves and a thousand

The Fourth Wednesday of Great Lent: Progress in Self-Knowledge & God has Created Nothing Evil

04/06/2016

Progress in Self-Knowledge I pray you, brothers and sisters: let us strive with every means at our disposal to know ourselves. Then each one of us, starting with this self-knowledge, will be able to discover what is too high for us. We need to know ourselves so well that we can say like David: ‘I am a worm and no man’ [Ps. 22:7] or like Abraham: ‘I am dust and ashes.’ [Gen. 18:7] Otherwise it

The Fourth Tuesday of Great Lent: When the Mind is Well Disposed & ‘Pray for One Another’

04/05/2016

When the Mind is Well Disposed So perhaps Abraham had some priest at his disposal? Some expert? Perhaps he had heard some teaching, some preaching, some wise counsel? But no written documents existed in those days, no Law, no Prophets, nothing of that sort at all. He successfully sailed a sea that was not favourable to him in the slightest. He traversed a road that was impassable, he who came from an idolatrous family. Nevertheless,

The Fourth Monday of Great Lent: The Secret of the Peace we need & It is Easy to Pass from Contemplation to Action but not Vice Versa

04/04/2016

The Secret of the Peace we need Those who are engaged in spiritual warfare must always keep their hearts tranquil. Only then can the mind sift the impulses it receives and store in the treasure house of the memory those that are good and come from God, while rejecting altogether those that are perverse and devilish. When the sea is calm, the fishermen’s eyes can see the movements of the fish deep down, so that

The Third Friday of Great Lent: The Reins of Power & You are Utterly Fair, my Love, and there is no Flaw in You

04/01/2016

The Reins of Power In certain cases, the spirit follows the inclinations of nature like a slave. The body takes the upper hand, rouses the passions and drives us to demand selfish pleasure. Then the spirit gives in to the body and even supplies it with the necessary means to satisfy its lusts. This is not the experience of everyone. Those who are holy do not behave like that. In them it is the spirit