Tag: desert
That for which I was sent is accomplished
Moses, the Libyan, was a very gentle and exceedingly lovable man who was accounted worthy of the gift of healing. He told me: When I was a youth in the monastery, we dug a large cistern twenty feet across. Eighty of us had been digging away there for three days and we had gone about a cubit farther than… Read More ›
Do you own possessions or do they posses you?
A possession ought to belong to the possessor, not the possessor to the possession. Whosoever, therefore, does not use his patrimony as a possession, who does not know how to give and distribute to the poor, he is the servant of his wealth, not its master; because like a servant he watches over the wealth… Read More ›
Is absolute poverty perfect goodness?
Someone asked amma Syncletica of blessed memory, “Is absolute poverty perfect goodness?” She replied, “It is a great good for those capable of it; even those who are not capable of it find rest for their souls in it though it causes them anxiety. As tough cloth is laundered pure white by stretched and trampled… Read More ›
Beneath the Sands
The human heart is deep, lost in a desert where its deepest longings are lost beneath the sands. Days spent in silent pain, surrounded by others on the same path; yet not a word is said. Love the key that is sought and often not found….or something less that only makes the wounds deeper and… Read More ›
Proper Disposition for Communion
We saw another holy father called Eulogius, who had received from God the grace of being able to discern both the merits and the guilt of anyone who approached the altar of God, so that he would stop some of the monks coming to him for Communion saying: “How can you dare to approach the… Read More ›
Desert story
One of the old men of the Thebaid used to tell the following story: “I was the son of a pagan priest. When I was small I would sit and watch my father who often went to sacrifice to the idol. Once, going behind him in secret, I saw Satan and all his army standing… Read More ›
Do not underestimate the mercy of God
An old man was asked by a certain soldier if God received a penitent man. And after heartening him with many words, he said to him at the last, “Tell me, beloved, if your cloak were torn, would you throw it away?” He said, “No, I would patch it and wear it.” The old man… Read More ›
Guard Fiercely again Spiritual Delusion
Even a pious person is not immune to spiritual sickness if he does not have a wise guide — either a living person or a spiritual writer. This sickness is called “prelest”, or spiritual delusion, imagining oneself to be near to God and to the realm of the divine and supernatural. Even zealous ascetics in… Read More ›
On Malice
As water standing behind an earth dam, and finding an aperture, washes it wider and wider and filters through it, if we do not strengthen the dam, or strengthen it insufficiently, at last, with growing weakness on our part and with repeated efforts, the water gets through with greater and greater force, so that at… Read More ›
Simple beyond measure.
You have heard from many all about the blessed Innocent, the priest of the Mount of Olives. Nevertheless you will also hear from us, who lived with him for three years. He was simple beyond measure. Once he had been one the palace dignitaries in the early days of Emperor Constantius. This Innocent was so… Read More ›