Sayings of The Holy Fathers:
You seek the Lord? Seek, but only within yourself. He is not far from anyone. The Lord is near all those who truly call on Him. Find a place in your heart, and speak there with the Lord. It is the Lord's reception room. Everyone who meets the Lord, meets Him there; He has fixed no other place for meeting souls.
St. Theophan the Recluse
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It is the children who bring their gift of praise so that the story may expose as unfounded any suspicion of insincerity, in the event that some deliberate evil-doer might say that the singers of praise offered their hymn to the Lord with some artifice and in order to curry favor. For the nature of babes knows not how to devise craftiness, or is it subject to the disease of flattery, but just as the grace of the Spirit sounds in them, so do they proclaim the miracle. Children offer their gift of praise so that they all may be taught in very deed that the grace of the Mystery is comprehended not by those who have a curious turn of mind and are shamelessly inquisitive, but that the knowledge of piety is revealed to those who approach it with an unaffected mind and thoughts unused to evil."
St. Photios the Great
[Homily on Palm Sunday]
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"If you see the fury and hear the howling of the tempest, or read of shipwrecks, think of the storm of human passions causing daily groans and disturbance in the hearts of men, wrecking the spiritual ship of the soul or the ship of human society; and pray fervently to the Lord that He may subdue the tempest of sins, as He once subdued the tempest at sea by His word, and that He may root our passions from our hearts, and re-establish in them unceasing tranquility."
St. John of Kronstadt
My Life in Christ: Part 2, Holy Trinity Monastery pg. 285
St. Theophan the Recluse
The Art of Prayer
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It is the children who bring their gift of praise so that the story may expose as unfounded any suspicion of insincerity, in the event that some deliberate evil-doer might say that the singers of praise offered their hymn to the Lord with some artifice and in order to curry favor. For the nature of babes knows not how to devise craftiness, or is it subject to the disease of flattery, but just as the grace of the Spirit sounds in them, so do they proclaim the miracle. Children offer their gift of praise so that they all may be taught in very deed that the grace of the Mystery is comprehended not by those who have a curious turn of mind and are shamelessly inquisitive, but that the knowledge of piety is revealed to those who approach it with an unaffected mind and thoughts unused to evil."
St. Photios the Great
[Homily on Palm Sunday]
+ + +
"If you see the fury and hear the howling of the tempest, or read of shipwrecks, think of the storm of human passions causing daily groans and disturbance in the hearts of men, wrecking the spiritual ship of the soul or the ship of human society; and pray fervently to the Lord that He may subdue the tempest of sins, as He once subdued the tempest at sea by His word, and that He may root our passions from our hearts, and re-establish in them unceasing tranquility."
St. John of Kronstadt
My Life in Christ: Part 2, Holy Trinity Monastery pg. 285
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