Words from the Saints -- April 3, 2025
Gerald Largent
"It is not the self-critical who reveals his humility (for does not everyone have somehow to put up with himself?). Rather it is the man who continues to love the person who has criticized him." --St. John Climacus
"Every Christian should find for himself the imperative and incentive to become holy. If you live without struggle and without hope of becoming holy, then you are Christians only in name and not in essence. But without holiness, no one shall see the Lord, that is to say they will not attain eternal blessedness. It is a trustworthy saying that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners (I Tim. 1:15). But we deceive ourselves if we think that we are saved while remaining sinners. Christ saves those sinners by giving them the means to become saints." --St. Philaret of Moscow
"You must love everyone with your whole soul, but put your hope in the one God, and serve Him alone. For as long as He is protecting us and our friends (the angels) are helping us, our enemies (the demons) cannot inflict evil upon us. But when He forsakes us, then also our friends turn away from us, and our enemies receive power over us." --St. Maximos Confessor
"He who repents rightly does not imagine that it is his own effort which cancels his former sins; but through this effort he makes his peace with God." --St. Mark the Ascetic