🍇☦🍇
Try to sell your estate and give it to the poor. And the possessions of the angry are his anger, the adulterer has his adulterous inclination, the vindictive has his malice, etc. Sell it and give it to the poor, that is, to demons who have nothing good. Return your passions to the perpetrators of the passions and then you will have a treasure, that is Christ, in heaven that is in your mind which has risen to a height.
You can have heaven inside you if you become like the One Who is above all the heavens.

#Theophylact_of_Bulgaria
#orthodox_Saints

🪔
Disputation between a Christian and a Saracen by St. John of Damascus

Part 6

And if a Saracen asks you, “the words of God, are they created or uncreated? They pose to us this very difficult question in their effort to prove that the Word of God is created, which is not true. If you answer they are “created,” he will tell you, behold you are affirming that the Word of God was created.
But if you answer “they are uncreated,” he will say, “Behold, all the words of God that exist are uncreated, yet they are not gods.
So, you agree with me that although Christ is the Word of God, he is not God.” For this reason answer with neither “created” nor “uncreated,” but, rather say, “I confess that there is only one hypostatic Word of God, who is uncreated, as you also acknowledge.”
On the other hand, I do not call my Scripture in its entirety “words,” but rather “utterances” of God.
But if he should ask how David the prophet says "The words of the Lord are pure words", and not the utterances of the Lord are pure utterances, tell him that the prophet speaks figuratively and not literally. If he should ask the difference between a figurative and a literal expression, answer that a literal expression is a less exact statement of a thing. But if he by way of objection should ask if it possible that a prophet should utter a less exact statement of a thing, tell him immediately that in the prophets one may find inanimate things spoken of as persons, with eyes and mouth attributed to them, as when the prophet says "The sea saw and fled". Now the sea, tell him, has no eyes, nor is it animated.
And again the same prophet addresses it as though alive, for he says "What ailes thee, O sea, that thou didst flee? The scripture says, the sword devours fleash, but 'to devour' is predicated of a mouth which eats and drinks. A sword cuts, it is true, but does not drink.
In like manner using figuratively language, the prophet called utterances words, though they are not words but utterances.

#John_of_Damascus
#heresy_of_islam

🪔
Lord, give us the humility to love those whom, by the most excellent worldly standards, we should hate. Loving the hateful is the first duty of a saint. If you look deeper, am I not the one most worthy of hatred?"

#Seraphim_Rose

Someone recounted that there was an official, a tax collector who was young and very good-looking, serving on imperial business. In one of the cities he had a friend among the leading citizens who had a younger wife. When he went there [his friend] received him as his guest. He would lodge in his house and eat in the presence of his wife, drawn to him by love. On account of the frequency of his visits to them, unbeknownst to him, the woman began to have logismoi about him. Being a woman of discretion, she showed nothing of this to him but went on suffering. It transpired that he went travelling as usual, but she became ill from the logismoi and took to her bed. Her husband brought doctors to her; examining her, they said to her husband: “... unless she has some mental disease, for physically there is nothing wrong with her.”
Sitting down beside her, her husband implored her at great length, saying: “Tell me what is the matter.” On her guard and blushing, she would confess nothing to begin with, but afterwards she confessed, saying: “You are aware, my lord, that, moved either by love or by generosity, you bring young persons here and I, being a woman, have fallen for the official.” On hearing that, her husband fell silent and when it happened some days later that the official came, he went out and met him. “My brother, you know how I loved you and that out of love I have received you and that you have eaten with my wife?” he said to him. “That is so, my lord-and-master”, the other said, and he said to him: “Now my wife has got logismoi for you.” On hearing this [the young man] not only had no logismoi for her, but, moved by his love [for the husband] was deeply distressed and said to him: “Do not be distressed; God is going to help.” He went away and removed his hair; he took lamnin and smeared it on his head and face until he had burnt them and even his eyebrows too. He destroyed all that beauty and looked like an old leper.
Putting on a veil, he came and found her lying sick with her husband sitting beside her. Uncovering [himself] he showed them [his] head and face and began to say: “The Lord made me like this.” She was amazed at the sight of him, such beauty transformed into such ugliness. God, seeing the man’s action, removed the affliction from her; she immediately arose, casting aside all those logismoi. Then the official took her husband aside and said to him: “Behold, [by the grace] of God your wife has nothing wrong with her; she is never seeing my face again.” Now look: that is to lay down one’s life for love [Jn 15:13] and to render good for good.

#Sayings_of_the_desert_fathers

1. Just as sailors, in the hope of gain, gladly endure the burning heat of the sun, so those who hate wickedness gladly accept reproof. For the former contend with the winds, the latter with passions.

2. Just as flight in winter or on the sabbath day (Matt. 24 : 20)
   brings suffering to the flesh and defilement to the soul, so too does resurgence of the passions in an aged body and a consecrated soul.

3. No one is as good and merciful as the Lord. But even He does not forgive the unrepentant.

#Mark_the_Ascetic
#philokalia

🪔⚓️🪔
Do not give free rein to your desires, but keep them in your power, directing everything exclusively to one main goal – standing in the will of God and walking according to the will of God. For then all your desires will be right and pious, and you will be at peace with every unpleasant accident, resting in the will of God.

#Nicodemus_the_Athonite
#orthodox_Saints

🪔☦🪔
Lord, give us the humility to love those whom, by the most excellent worldly standards, we should hate. Loving the hateful is the first duty of a saint. If you look deeper, am I not the one most worthy of hatred?

#Seraphim_Rose

An anchorite saw one demon inciting another one to go and awaken a sleeping monk and he heard the other one saying: “I cannot do that because I did awaken him once. He got up and burnt me, singing psalms and praying.”

#Sayings_of_the_desert_fathers

1. When through some sensual pleasure the heart is deflected from the ascetic way, it becomes difficult to control, like a heavy stone dislodged on steep ground.

74· Like a young calf which, in its search for grazing, finds itself on a ledge surrounded by precipices, the soul is gradually led astray by its thoughts.

75· When the intellect, having grown to full maturity in the Lord, wrenches the soul from long-continued prepossession, the heart suffers torments as if on the rack, since intellect and passion drag it in opposite directions.

#Mark_the_Ascetic
#philokalia

1. He whose mind teems with thoughts lacks self-control ; and even when they are beneficial , hope is more so .

2. There is a sin which is always 'unto death' (1 John 5:16) : the sin for which we do not repent. For this sin even a saint's prayers will not be heard.

42 . 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.

#Mark_the_Ascetic
#philokalia