Words from the Saints -- December 28, 2023

"In order to learn praying, pray more often and with more zeal and you will learn it: you would not need anything else. If you work hard and patiently, you will acquire the skill of unceasing prayer with time. Make it your goal—to seek and do seek. The Lord is close to you. Keep God always in your mind and always try to see the Lord before you and to venerate Him." --St. Theophan the Recluse

"Nothing causes such exceeding grief as when one calls to mind that he has fallen because he turned aside to carnal and earthly things, instead of directing his mind in the beautiful ways of the knowledge of God." --St. Ambrose of Milan

"Doctrine listened to is a light in darkness, a road home to the lost traveler, an illumination for the blind. A discerning man is a discoverer of health, a destroyer of sickness." --St. John Climacus

"Of course, it would be easier to get to Paradise with a full stomach, all snuggled up in a soft featherbed, but what is required is to carry one’s cross along the way, for the kingdom of God is not attained by enduring one or two troubles, but many!" --St. Anthony of Optina

"Afflictions, illnesses, ill health and the pains that our bodies experience are counted for the remission of our trespasses. They are the furnace in which we are purified." --St. John Chrysostom

"He who repents rightly does not imagine that it is his own effort that cancels his former sins, but through this effort he makes his peace with God." --St. Hesychios the Priest