Words from the Saints -- January 7, 2020
Gerald Largent
"There are many differing methods of prayer. No method is harmful; if it were, it would be not prayer but the activity of Satan." --St. Mark the Ascetic
"The person who truly wishes to be healed is he who does not refuse treatment. This treatment consists of the pain and distress brought on by various misfortunes. He who refuses them does not realize what they accomplish in this world or what he will gain from them when he departs this life." --St. Maximos the Confessor
"Without contrition of the heart it is altogether impossible to rid ourselves of evil. Now the heart is made contrite by threefold self-control: in sleep, in food and in bodily relaxation. For excess of these three things leads to self-indulgence; and this in turn makes us accept evil thoughts, and is opposed to prayer and to appropriate work." --St. Kosmas Aitolos
"True hope seeks the one Kingdom of God and is sure that everything necessary for this mortal life will surely be given. The heart cannot have peace until it acquires this hope. This hope pacifies it fully and brings joy to it. The most holy lips of the Savior spoke about this very hope: 'Come to Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'" (Matthew 11:28).” --St. Seraphim of Sarov
"No one in this world is happy unless he has opened wide the gates of his spiritual Jerusalem--his soul--and received God into himself. A godless man feels lonely to despair. The society of others does not make his loneliness go away, but only increases it. However he who has taken God into his soul will never feel lonely even in a desert. No one dies an eternal death other than one in whom God has died." --St. Nikolai Velimirovich