Words from the Saints -- December 24, 2020

"All those who belong to Jesus Christ are fastened with Him to the cross." --St. Augustine of Hippo

"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. Mark the Ascetic

"Christian! Observe once and for all how the sunflower even on gloomy days pursues its circular course, following the sun with the unchanging love and attraction natural to it. Our sun, illuminating our path through this world, is the will of God; it does not always illuminate our path in life without clouds; often clear days are followed by gloomy ones: rain, wind, storms arise. But let our love for our Sun, the will of God, be so strong that we may continue, inseparably from it, even in days of misfortune and sorrow, like the sunflower on gloomy days, to navigate faultlessly on the sea of life, following the indications of the ‘barometer’ and ‘compass’ of the will of God, which leads us into the safe harbor of eternity." --St. John of Tobolsk

"Blessed the one whose mind the dark diabolical cloud has not been able to invade and deprive of the sweet light and joy of the just." --St. Ephraim the Syrian

"Silence is not a virtue when charity calls for speech." --St. Poemen

"We have learned to recognize as freedom that which the Lord alone confers on us when he liberates us from lusts and desires and the other passions. 'He who says, I know the Lord, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him,' says the Holy Apostle John." --St. Clement of Alexandria