Leave the Brain and Enter the Heart

"You should descend to your heart from your head... The life is in the heart, so you should live there. Do not think that this applies only to the perfect. No, it applies to everyone who begins to seek out the Lord."

-St. Theophan the Recluse

No Bounds

“The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds.”

-St. Maximus the Confessor

Grace

"All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”

-Flannery O'Connor

Our Love for God and Man

"In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human successes, but on how well we have loved.”

-St. Juan de la Cruz

Poetry

Affliction

"Do not claim to have acquired virtue unless you have suffered affliction, for without affliction virtue has not been tested."

-St. Mark the Ascetic

On the Apostles' Fast

"The contemporary God is much the same as the contemporary diet – we want as much of Him as we want – anytime, anywhere. There is no rhythm to our desire, only the rise and fall of passions. There is no legalism in the Orthodox fast. I do not think God punishes those who fail to fast. I believe that they simply continue to become less and less human. We will not accept the limits and boundaries of our existence and thus find desires to be incessant and unruly. It makes us bestial."

-On the Apostles' Fast



A blessed Apostles' Fast to all Byzantine Christians!