Words from the Saints -- January 14, 2021

"When God revealed Himself, He united Himself with our mortal nature in order to deify mankind through this close relation with deity. Since this is so, through His flesh, constituted by bread and wine, He implants Himself in all believers." --St. Gregory of Nyssa

"A good conscience is found through prayer, and pure prayer through the conscience. Each by nature needs the other." --St. Mark the Ascetic

"Do not wish what concerns you to be as seems (best) to you, but as God wishes; and you will be free from cares and thankful in your prayer." --St. Nilus of Sinai

"Examine yourself to see whether you have within you a strong sense of your own self importance, or negatively, whether you have failed to realize that you are nothing. This feeling of self-importance is deeply hidden, but it controls the whole of our life. Its first demand is that everything should be as we wish it, and as soon as this is not so we complain to God and are annoyed with people." --St. Theophan the Recluse

"If a man has no worries about himself at all for the sake of love toward God and the working of good deeds, knowing that God is taking care of him, this is a true and wise hope. But if a man takes care of his own business and turns to God in prayer only when misfortunes come upon him which are beyond his power, and then he begins to hope in God, such a hope is vain and false. A true hope seeks only the Kingdom of God... the heart can have no peace until it obtains such a hope. This hope pacifies the heart and produces joy within it." --St. Seraphim of Sarov

"Pay attention carefully. After the sin comes the shame; courage follows repentance. Did you pay attention to what I said? Satan upsets the order; he gives the courage to sin and the shame to repentance." --St. John Chrysostom