Sayings of the Holy Fathers

"What are `our traditions'? They are everything that the God-man Christ, He Himself, and by the Holy Spirit, gave the commandment to hold and to live according to then; whatever He delivered in His Church, in which He dwells continuously with His Holy Spirit (cf. Mt. 28:19-29). `Our traditions' are our whole life in grace in God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the life of us Christians, which began in the Church of Christ, through the Apostles, by the descent of the Holy Spirit. All of this life of ours is not from us, but from the Lord Jesus, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, or, more precisely, our entire life is from the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit."

St. Justin Popovich.

+ + +

"The foundation of justice therefore is faith, for the hearts of the just dwell on faith, and the just man that accuses himself builds justice on faith, for his justice becomes plain when he confesses the truth. So the Lord says through Isaiah: `Behold, I lay a stone for a foundation in Zion.' This means Christ as the foundation of the Church. For Christ is the object of faith to all; but the Church is as it were the outward form of justice, she is the common right of all. For all in common she prays, for all in common she works, in the temptations of all, she is tried. So he who denies himself is indeed a just man, is indeed worthy of Christ. For this reason Paul has made Christ to be the foundation, so that we may build upon Him the works of justice, while faith is the foundation. In our works, then, if they are evil, there appears unrighteousness; if they are good, justice."

St. Ambrose of Milan.

+ + +

"The blessed apostle offers as a summary of salvation the perfection of these three virtues. `Now,' he says, `these three things remain - faith, hope, love' (1 Cor. 13:13). For it is faith - with its fear of the judgment and punishment to come - which brings about the decline of sin's contagion.

It is hope which draws our mind from the things of the present and which in its anticipation of heavenly rewards spurns all the pleasures of the body. And it is love which fires us to long for Christ, to be zealous for the fruit of the spiritual virtues and to detest utterly whatever is contrary to these virtues."

St. John Cassian.