Every day, every night, let us think that God is watching us, that He hears our prayers, that He sees the depths of our spirit. This does not mean, of course, that we see God as He is, but it creates an atmosphere which allows us to perceive our imperfections in the course of each day: the dissipation of our mind, our faults in our relations with others, and so on. Living with other people,
The Heavenly Kingdom is peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We need to humble our hearts, which take insults so deeply and also our so-called dignity, for we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven in pride, as when we take to heart each slander our neighbor casts. We must accept our lessons from everyday life, for each day brings us cares, worries, and insults. We must learn not to take insults to heart, for
“For God alone my soul waits in silence.” (Ps. 61:1) “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Rev. 8:1) “Silence is the sacrament of the world to come.” (St. Isaac the Syrian) Silence is not just the absence of ambient noise. Nor does it mean the lack of laughter or music or shared reflection. Silence is a state of mind and heart, a condition of
You have already realized how unbelievably quickly life goes by. One does not notice this as much in one’s youth, but when the years bear down upon us, we see that a lot of time has passed and that very little is left of this life. Where do we go when the end of our life comes? We know where we are going while we are still here, but what happens afterwards? Where are we
Poison in your Heart: The Memory of Insults The memory of insults is the residue of anger. It keeps sins alive, hates justice, ruins virtue, poisons the heart, rots the mind, defeats concentration, paralyses prayer, puts love at a distance, and is a nail driven into the soul. If anyone has appeased his anger, he has already suppressed the memory of insults, while as long as the mother is alive the son persists. In order
Purify the Roots and You will be Entirely Pure Discipline of the body, if it is combined with peace of mind, purifies it from all material tendencies. Discipline of the soul makes it humble and purifies it from the impressions that push it in a material direction. Discipline effects the transition from the emotions of passion to the activity of contemplation, or, better, it raises the soul above all terrestrial objects and feeds it on
According to the Conferences, to cultivate purity of heart means to live a life of Christian virtue. For the fathers, speaking about virtues is like placing the white light of purity of heart through a mental prism. Virtues are like the colors that make up the light, combining indivisibly into a single whole, but capable of being discussed on their own. Many of the fathers in the Conferences talk at length about virtues, their nature,
Jesus said to His Disciples, “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. The glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them, that they may be one
By Scott Cairns The Mind in the Heart The more we read in the fathers and mothers across the early centuries of the Church, the more profoundly we come to recognize this formula, this admonition that we might find our prayer lives made fruitful by our descending with our “minds” into our “hearts.” This figure, then — of the lucid nous descended into the ready kardiá, of the mind pressed into the heart — articulates both the
By Scott Cairns “He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.” —Psalm 22:3 Among a good many advantages our predecessors in the early Church could claim was a more nearly adequate vocabulary. For instance, they were in possession of a number of words that indicated a number of amazing truths. Nous, kardiá, népsis and théosis were among those words that helped to keep the young Body focused on the task at hand, the task of healing our shared
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