The Wisdom of the Holy Fathers - Quotes for daily living

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"Lift up and stretch out your hands, not to heaven but to the poor; for if you stretch out your hands to the poor, you have reached the summit of heaven. But if you lift up your hands in prayer without sharing with the poor, it is worth nothing ... Every family should have a room where Christ is welcomed in the person of the hungry and thirsty stranger. The poor are a greater temple than the sanctuary; this altar the poor, you can raise up anywhere, on any street, and offer the liturgy at any hour." -- St John Chrysostom

http://www.forthelife.org/a10.htm
 
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"This is the mark of Christianity -- however much a man toils, and however many righteousnesses he performs, to feel that he has done nothing, and in fasting to say, "This is not fasting," and in praying, "This is not prayer, " and in perseverance at prayer, "I have shown no perseverance, I am only just beginning to practice and to take pains": and even if he is righteous before God, he should say, "I am not righteous, not I; I do no take pains, but only make a beginning every day."

-St. Marcarius the Great
 
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God is a fire that warms and kindles the heart and inward parts. Hence, if we feel in our hearts the cold which comes from the devil- for the devil is cold- let us call on the Lord. He will come to warm our hearts with perfect love, not only for Him but also for our neighbor, and the cold of him who hates the good will flee before the heat of His countenance.

-St. Seraphim of Sarov
 
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An old man was asked, "How can I find God?" He said, 'In fasting, in watching, in labours, in devotion, and, above all, in discernment. I tell you, many have injured their bodies without discernment and have gone away from us having achieved nothing. Our mouths smell bad through fasting, we know the Scriptures by heart, we recite the Psalms of David, but we have not that which God seeks: charity and humility.

-Apophthegmata Patrum

. .:crosseo:
 
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In Christianity truth is not a philosophical concept nor is it a theory, a teaching, or a system, but rather, it is the living theanthropic hypostasis - the historical Jesus Christ (John 14:6) Before Christ men could only conjecture about the Truth since they did not possess it. With Christ as the incarnate divine Logos the eternally complete divine Truth enters into the world. For this reason the Gospel says; "Truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).

-St. Justin Popovich
 
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Monasticism itself is a perpetual labor of conquering passions and uprooting them in order that, being in a pure and immaculate state, one may preserve oneself before the face of God. This, then, is your task! Give your attention to it, and direct all your powers toward it.

- St. Theophan the Recluse

 
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Of Prelest (spiritual delusion)

See, I want to impart to you true knowledge of prelest, so that you should guard against it, and not cause great harm to yourself and ruin your soul through ignorance. For human self-will is easily inclined to the enemies' side, especially in the case of the inexperienced, since these are more assiduously pursued by them. All around, near to beginners and the self-willed, the demons are wont to spread the nets of thoughts and pernicious fantasies and prepare moats for their downfall, since their city is still in the hands of barbarians ...
If you ...see something either sensory or spiritual, within or without, be it even the image of Christ or an angel or some saint, or if an imaginary light pervades your mind, in no way accept it. The mind has in itself a natural power of dreaming and can easily build fantastic images of what it desires in those who do not apprehensively pay attention, and so cause themselves harm. Memories, too, of good and bad things will often suddenly imprint their images in the mind, and thus entice it to dreaming.

(-St. Gregory of Sinai. Instructions to Hesychasts. 7. Philokalia. B#23, pp. 80-81.)
 
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[63,4] 581

Also in the priest Melchisedech we see the Sacrament of the Sacrifice of the Lord prefigured, in accord with that to which the Divine Scriptures testify, where it says: "And Melchisedech, the King of Salem, brought out bread and wine, for he was a priest of the Most High God; and he blessed Abraham (19)." That Melchisedech is in fact a type of Christ is declared in the psalms by the Holy Spirit, saying to the Son, as it were from the Father: "Before the daystar I begot You. You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedech (20)."
The order certainly is that which comes from his sacrifice and which comes down from it: because Melchisedech was a priest of the Most High God; because he offered bread; and because he blessed Abraham. And who is more of a priest of the Most High God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when He offered sacrifice to God the Father, offered the very same which Melchisedech had offered, namely bread and wine, which is in fact His Body and Blood!

-St. Cyprian of Carthage

 
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[10] 789

When the Seraphim glorify God, saying thrice, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth (4), " they are glorifying Father,Son,and Holy Spirit (5) And likewise, just as we are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, so also in the name of the Holy Spirit (6); and we are made sons of God, not of gods. For it is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who is Lord of hosts. For the Godhead is one, and there is one God in three persons. (7).

- St. Athanasius
 
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[73,34] 1107

[The Antiochians] confess that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are consubstantial (14), three persons, one substance, one God (15), because that faith which is true which is handed down by those who came first, that faith which is both prophetic and evangelic, and apostolic, that faith which our fathers and bishops confessed, when they met in the Synod of Nicaea in the presence of Constantine, the great and blessed king.

- St. Epiphanius of Salamis
 
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[10,3] 46

It is absurd to have Jesus Christ on the lips and at the same time to practice Judaism. Christianity did not base its faith on Judaism, but Judaism on Christianity, in which every tongue believing in God is brought together.

- St. Ignatius of Antioch
 
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[On Ps. 28, no. 6]

"The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire (3). " . . .I believe that the fire prepared in punishment fro the devil and his angels is divided by the voice of the Lord. Thus, since there are two capacities in fire, one of burning and the other of illuminating, the fierce and punitive property of the fire may await those who deserve to burn, while its illuminating and radiant part may be reserved for the enjoyment of those who are rejoicing.

- St. Basil the Great
 
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[21,14]

This [denial of the divinity of Christ] was written in the Council of Rimini, and I am right when I shiver at the thought of that Council. I follow the teaching of the Council of Niceaea, from which neither death nor the sword shall ever be able to separate me.

- St. Ambrose of Milan
 
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[Jaeger: Vol. 9, p. 268] 1064

Just as seed, existing formlessly in the beginning, is shaped into a design and increases in bulk, prepared as it is by the indescribable skill of God, so too it is not at all absurd but entirely consistent that the material enclosed in tombs and which once was possessed of shaped should be restored anew to its ancient structure, and dust become man again the same way that man originally took his birth from dust.

- St. Gregory of Nyssa
 
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We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God; the only-begotten, begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father; God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten, not made; of the same substance as the Father; through whom (1) all things were made, both those in heaven and those on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down, took flesh, and was made man, suffered, and rose up on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. But those who say there was a time when He was not, and that He was made of what did not exist, or who say that he is of another hypostasis or substance, or that the Son of God is created or subject to change or alteration, the Catholic Church anathematizes.


. . .
 
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On Pride

[source:philokalia pg.92] Our eighth struggle is against the demon of pride, a most sinister demon, fiercer than all that have been discussed up till now. He attacks the perfect above all and seeks to destroy those who have mounted almost to the heights of holiness. Just as a deadly plague destroys not one member of the body, but the whole of it, so pride corrupts the whole soul, not just part of it. Each of the other passions that trouble the soul attacks and tries to overcome the single virtue which is opposed to it, and so it darkens and troubles the soul on partially. But the passion of pride darkens the soul completely and leads to its utter downfall.
In order to understand more fully what is meant by this , we should look at the problem in the following way. Gluttony tries to destroy self-control; unchastity, moderation; avarice, voluntary poverty; anger, gentleness; and other forms of vice, their corresponding virtues. But when the vice of pride has become the master of our wretched soul, it acts like some harsh tyrant who has gained control of a great city, and destroys it completely, razing it to its foundations.
The angel who fell from heaven because of his pride bears witness to this. He had been created by God and adorned with every virtue and all wisdom, but he did not want to ascribe this to the grace of the Lord. He ascribed it to his own nature and as a result regarded himself as equal to God. The prophet rebukes this claim when he says: 'You have said in your heart: "I will sit on a high mountain; I will place my throne upon the clouds and I will be like the Most High." Yet you are a man, and not God' (cf. Isa. 14.13-14) And again, another prophet says, 'Why do you boast of your wickedness, O mighty man? ' and he continues on this same vein (Ps. 52:1). Since we are ware of this we should feel fear and guard our hearts with extreme care from the deadly spirit of pride. When we have the words of the Apostle: "Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me' (1 Cor. 15.10), as well as what was said by the Lord: 'Without Me you can do nothing' (John 15:5). We should also bear in mind what the prophet said: 'Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it' (Ps. 127:1), and finally: 'It does not depend on man's will or effort, but on God's mercy' (Rom. 9:16)
Even if someone is sedulous,serious and resolute, he cannot, so long as he is bound to flesh and blood, approach perfection except through the mercy and grace of Christ. James himself says that 'every good gift is from above' (Jas 1:17), while the Apostle Paul asks: 'What do you have which you did not receive? Now if you received it, why do you boast, as if you had not received it?' (1 Cor. 4:7). What right, then, has a man to be proud as though he could achieve perfection through his own efforts?
The thief who received the kingdom of heaven, though not as the reward of virtue, is a true witness to the fact that salvation is ours through the grace and mercy of God. All of our holy fathers knew this and all with one accord teach that perfection in holiness can be achieved only through humility. Humility, in its turn, can be achieved only through faith, fear of God, gentleness, and the shedding of all possessions. It is by means of these that we attain perfect love, through the grace and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory through all the ages. Amen.
 
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[Let us charge into the good fight with joy and love and without being afraid of our enemies. Though unseen themselves, they can look at the face of our soul, and if they see it altered by fear, they take up arms against against us all the more fiercely, For the cunning creatures have observed that we are scared. So let us take up arms against them courageously. No one will fight with a resolute fighter.] St. John Climacus.
 
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