Motivational Quotes

Featured Quote:

'The key to spiritual progress is, therefore, evangelical love for one’s enemies. This is first of all – something very simple, but very difficult – the refusal to judge, the refusal to assert oneself in despising or condemning others. Only such an attitude of mind brings detachment and peace. The rest is secondary.'

- Olivier Clement

Motivational Quotes:

A Prayer for Today St. Isaac the Syrian (613-700 CE)

Lord Jesus Christ, King of kings, You have power over life and death. You know even things that are uncertain and obscure, and our very thoughts and feelings are not hidden from you. Cleanse me from my secret faults, for I have done wrong and you saw it. You know how weak I am, both in soul and body. Give me strength, O Lord, in my frailty and sustain me in my sufferings. Grant me a prudent judgment, dear Lord, and let me always be mindful of Your blessings. Let me retain until the end, Your grace that has protected me until now. Amen

---

The Son is 'Life' (Jn. 14:6) because He is 'Light', constituting and giving reality to every thinking being. 'For in Him we live, move and exist' (Acts 17:28) and there is a two-fold sense in which He breathes into us (cf. Gen. 2:7; Jn. 20:22); we are filled, all of us, with His breath, and those who are capable of it, all those who open their mind's mouth wide enough, with His Holy Spirit.

- Gregory of Nazianzus

If our thoughts are kind, peaceful, and quiet, turned only to the good, then we also influence ourselves and radiate peace all around us - in our family, the whole country, everywhere. This is true not only here on earth, but in the cosmos as well. When we labor in the fields of the Lord, we create harmony. Divine harmony, peace, and quiet spread everywhere.

- Elder Thaddeus of Vitnovica

How torturous is the 'churchly' language one must speak in church - the tone, style, habit. It is all artificial; there is a total absence of a simple human language. With what a sigh of relief one leaves this world of cassocks, and kissing and church gossip. As soon as one leaves, one sees: wet bare branches, fog which floats over fields, trees, homes. Sky. Early dusk. And it all tells an incredibly simple truth.

- Fr. Alexander Schmemann

The secret essence of the soul that knows the truth is calling out to God: Beloved, strip me of the consolations of my complacent spirituality. Plunge me into the darkness where I cannot rely on any of my old tricks for maintaining my separation. Let me give up on trying to convince myself that my own spiritual deeds are bound to be pleasing to you. Take all my juicy spiritual feelings, Beloved, and dry them up, and then please light them on fire. Take my lofty spiritual concepts and plunge them into darkness, and then burn them. Let me only love you, Beloved. Let me quietly and with unutterable simplicity just love you.

- St. John of the Cross (translated by Mirabai Starr)

Thus says the Lord, the one who created you, who formed you: "Do not be afraid, for I have delivered you. I have called you by your name, and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overcome you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. You are precious in my sight, and I love you. Do not be afraid -- for I am with you."

(Isaiah 43:1-6)

In the language of his place and time, Christ spoke of the mode of existence and life "according to truth" as the "kingdom of heaven." He preached that those who guide us toward this "mode" are not pious religious people, those who find satisfaction in being virtuous, those who shore up their ego by keeping some kind of law. Those who guide us are people who have lost all confidence in their own selves, people who expect no personal reward whatsoever, and only thirst to be loved even if they don't deserve it - despised sinners: tax collectors, robbers, prostitutes, and prodigals.

- Christos Yannaras

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

- Leviticus 19:33-34

Do we think we can follow Christ only when it pleases us or matches our opinions? That is not so. It's all or nothing. Are there some areas in our lives that are exempt from the Gospel? Of course not, so we mustn't fool ourselves. Something has to give and that something is our opinions and personal gripes, our likes and dislikes, our fears and desires. "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind," says St. Paul and if that doesn't mean the transformation of everything in our minds that isn't holy, isn't compassionate, isn't like Christ himself, then I don't know what it means. We grow into Christ by subtraction, not by addition. Opening our hearts to him, we let go of all things that have no place in his kingdom of peace, joy and love.

- Fr. Antony

Christ, who approached prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners, can hardly be the teacher of those who are afraid to soil their pristine garments, who are completely devoted to the letter, who live only by the rules, and who govern their whole life according to rules.

- St. Maria of Paris

"The soul leaves all surface appearances, not only those that can be grasped by the senses but also those which the mind itself seems to see, and it keeps going deeper until by the operation of the spirit it penetrates the invisible and incomprehensible, and it is there that it sees God. The true vision and the true knowledge of what we seek consists precisely in not seeing, in an awareness that our goal transcends all knowledge...

- St. Gregory of Nyssa

"When you reach a state of harmony within yourself and become friends with yourself, then, simultaneously, your environment, Heaven and Earth, will become your friends. For such a person there are no enemies, no ‘impure’ people. Everything is pure to those who are pure."

"Do you realize that our best friend is ourselves? We don’t have a closer and more intimate friend than ourselves…So the first person you must befriend is yourself. You will then be able to see yourself with great love and compassion."

- Fr. Maximos quoted in THE INNER RIVER

Everything will eventually settle into order, but if we keep just endlessly reiterating what has been said long ago, more and more people will drift away from their faith...not because everything that was stated before is erroneous, but because the approach and language being used are all wrong. Today's people and the time they live in are different; today we think differently. I believe one must become rooted in God and not be afraid of thinking and feeling freely."

From The Wheel, "The Problem of Fear, A Reflection on the Words of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh", issue 4, Winter 2016

The Fifth Beatitude that was spoken in the Sermon on the Mount is, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy (Matt. 5:7). It is possible that no other commandment of Christ is needed more in our epoch than this commandment of mercy, of charity. We live in the era of ideologies which in their attempt to be all-encompassing exist in continuous strife, and this strife fills the world with fear and hatred. We live in a world where mercy and charity are exiled, and that that is perhaps the most frightening thing about it, the sign of its dehumanization.

How often it is told about Christ in the Gospels that He had compassion on them, that He was merciful to them!

- Fr. Alexander Schmemann

In love did He bring the world into existence; in love does He guide it during this its temporal existence; in love is He going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of Him who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised. And since in the New World the Creator’s love rules over all rational nature, the wonder at His mysteries that will be revealed then will captivate to itself the intellect of all rational beings whom He has created so that they might have delight in Him, whether they be evil or whether they be just."

- St. Isaac of Syria

Created man cannot become a son of God and a god by grace through deification, unless he is first through his own free choice begotten in the Spirit by means of the self-loving and independent power dwelling naturally in him.

- St. Maximos the Confessor

It seems to me, and I am personally convinced, that the Church must never speak from a position of strength…It ought not to be one of the forces influencing this or that state. The Church ought to be, if you will, just as powerless as God himself, which does not coerce but which calls and unveils the beauty and the truth of things without imposing them. As soon as the Church begins to exercise power, it loses its most profound characteristic which is divine love [i.e.] the understanding of those it is called to save and not to smash…"

- Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

Finally, the importance of apophatic...theology, underlining the mystery and transcendence of God even while affirming the divine presence and immanence, dictates a reluctance to define or pontificate on matters of ethical importance. The deeper conviction always is that the truth can never be objectified or exhausted, while each human person is also uniquely created in the image of God, never able to be reduced to anything less than a mystery."

- Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

"An old man was asked, 'How can I find God?' He said, 'In fasting, in watching, in labors, 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 all the Psalms of David, but we have not that which God seeks: charity and humility.'"

- The Desert Fathers

"If you cannot be merciful, at least speak as though you are a sinner. If you are not a peacemaker, at least do not be a troublemaker. If you cannot be assiduous, at least in your thought be like a sluggard. If you are not victorious, do not exalt yourself over the vanquished. If you cannot close the mouth of a man who disparages his companion, at least refrain from joining him in this."

- St. Isaac the Syrian

"When we are coming to church what are we looking for? Fish in the desert? No, we are looking for that hidden "inward meditation" of the heart which unites us to Christ...The same thing happens in the church where you are mystically and sacramentally united with Christ. In and through your inner meditation on these things they will become a reality...In order to find Him strive to enter into that hidden, inner meditation and you'll see that He'll come of His own accord. You'll see the heavy stone roll away from your heart and He Himself will rise!"

- Elder Aimilianos, THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

"There are two paths that lead to God: the hard and debilitating path with fierce assaults against evil, and the easy path of love. There are many who chose the hard path and 'shed blood in order to receive Spirit' until they attained great virtue. I find the shorter and safer route is the path of love.

That is, you can make a different kind of effort: to study and pray and have your aim to advance in the love of God and of the Church. Do not fight to expel darkness from the chamber of your soul. Open a tiny aperture for the light to enter, and the darkness will disappear. The same holds true for our passions and desires. Do not fight them, but transform them into strengths by showing disdain for evil."

Do not choose negative methods to correct yourselves. There is no need to fear the devil, hell or anything else. These things provoke a negative reaction...The object is to live, to study, to pray and to advance in love...

- Elder Porphyrios, WOUNDED BY LOVE, p. 136

When your intellect in its great longing for God gradually withdraws from the flesh and turns away from all thoughts that have their source in your sense-perception, memory or soul[mind]-body temperament, and when it becomes full of reverence and joy, then you may conclude that you are close to the frontiers of prayer [meditation].

- Evagrius "On Prayer [Meditation]" from The Philokalia Vol. 1

Christianity without compassion is only a religion and religion without compassion, as we have seen over and over again in history, and are seeing now in living color on our television sets, gives birth to the greatest of evils.

- Fr. Antony

When people say that God is one, they think it means that He is not two, three, four or ten. That is, they enumerate God. But God cannot be counted. So in this sense it cannot be said that God is one. If you count Him, then you limit Him. God is not one in the numerical sense that we say, for example, that this book is one. There is nothing like God and no number like Him.

- Metropolitan Georges Khodr

"Our attitude towards evil must be freed from hatred, and has itself need to be enlightened in character...Satan rejoices when he succeeds in inspiring us with diabolical feelings to himself. It is he who wins when his own methods are used against himself...A continual denunciation of evil and its agents merely encourages its growth in the world - a truth sufficiently revealed in the Gospels, but to which we are persistently blind."

- Berdayev, Freedom and the Spirit, p. 182

"Do you fast? Then feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick, do not forget the imprisoned, have pity on the tortured, comfort those who grieve and who weep, be merciful, humble, kind, calm, patient, sympathetic, forgiving, reverent, truthful and pious, so that God might accept your fasting and might plentifully grant you the fruits of repentance."

- Saint John Chrysostom

"You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of him who gives and kindles joy in the heart of him who receives. All condemnation is from the devil. Never condemn each other. We condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves. When we gaze at our own failings, we see such a swamp that nothing in another can equal it. That is why we turn away, and make much of the faults of others. Instead of condemning others, strive to reach inner peace. Keep silent, refrain from judgment. This will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult and outrage and will shield your glowing hearts against all evil."

- St Seraphim of Sarov

"We see the water of a river flowing uninterruptedly and passing away, and all that floats on its surface, rubbish or beams of trees, all pass by. Christian! So does our life. . .I was an infant, and that time has gone. I was an adolescent, and that too has passed. I was a young man, and that too is far behind me. The strong and mature man that I was is no more. My hair turns white, I succumb to age, but that too passes; I approach the end and will go the way of all flesh. I was born in order to die. I die that I may live. Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom!"

- St. Tikhon of Voronezh

No where does Jesus command us to rule like autocrats forcing our views, morals and doctrines on anyone. If his kingdom were of this world, then he would have done so. In fact, he resisted this temptation in the wilderness when Satan showed him all the kingdoms of earth and offered them to him to rule and we must also resist it. Because His kingdom is not of this world He teaches the opposite way - the way of self-sacrifice even to the point of death. If we follow him, then we will not make demands on our neighbors. We do so out of fear and desire, the two surest signs that we have not yet understood the Gospel.

– Fr. Antony

Do not ever close your mind or allow it to be closed. St. Gregory of Nyssa says that "sin is the failure to grow." Question, explore, think deeply, discover. The narrower the mind the easier it is be fooled and to be controlled. The best definition of Orthodoxy is from Fr. Alexander Elchaninov in THE DIARY OF A RUSSIAN PRIEST, "Orthodoxy is the element of absolute freedom."

– Fr. Antony