Sayings of the Holy Fathers
"Be eager to have companions on your way toward God. Any of you going to the market, or perhaps to the public baths, will invite someone you see has nothing else to do to come along. It is so natural we make it a habit. So, if you are going toward God take care not to go to Him alone. It is written, `Let him who hears say, Come!' Those who haved received in their hearts a word of heavenly love an respond with a word of encouragement to their neighbors. They may have no bread to give as an alms to another who is in need, but one who has a tongue has something greater with which to make an offering. It is worth more to offer a nourishing word to refresh a heart that is going to live forever than to satisfy with earthly bread the stomach of a body that is going to die."
St. Gregory the Great.
+ + +
"It is not possible to correct yourself rightly if you do not recognize the evil hidden in your heart and the calamities that proceed from it. An unrecognized disease remains untreated. The beginning of health is to know your disease, and the beginning of blessedness is to know your misfortune and wretchedness. For who having recognized his illness does not seek healing, and who knowing his misfortune does not seek deliverance from it?"
St. Tikhon of Zadonsk.
+ + +
"The perfect man is, so to speak, a partaker of Christ, after the words: `For we are made partaker of Christ' (Heb. 3:14); but our man, a beginner as he is, says that he is `a partaker with them that fear' the Lord, and not merely those who fear, but of those who, because they fear, `keep the commandments' of God. The mark of fear of God is to keep His commandments."
St. Athanasius of Alexandria.
St. Gregory the Great.
+ + +
"It is not possible to correct yourself rightly if you do not recognize the evil hidden in your heart and the calamities that proceed from it. An unrecognized disease remains untreated. The beginning of health is to know your disease, and the beginning of blessedness is to know your misfortune and wretchedness. For who having recognized his illness does not seek healing, and who knowing his misfortune does not seek deliverance from it?"
St. Tikhon of Zadonsk.
+ + +
"The perfect man is, so to speak, a partaker of Christ, after the words: `For we are made partaker of Christ' (Heb. 3:14); but our man, a beginner as he is, says that he is `a partaker with them that fear' the Lord, and not merely those who fear, but of those who, because they fear, `keep the commandments' of God. The mark of fear of God is to keep His commandments."
St. Athanasius of Alexandria.
Comments