Month: June 2017

June 18

He who combines the practice of the virtues with spiritual knowledge is a man of power. For with the first he withers his desire and tames his incensiveness, and with the second he gives wings to his intellect and goes out of himself to God….

In everything that we do God searches out our purpose to see whether we do it for Him or for some other motive….

When a trial comes upon you unexpectedly, do not blame the person through whom it came but try to discover the reason why it came, and then you will find a way of dealing with it. For whether through this person or through someone else you had in any case to drink the wormwood of God’s judgments….

The sensible man, taking into account the remedial effect of the divine prescriptions, gladly bears the sufferings which they bring upon him, since he is aware that they have no cause other than his own sin. But when the fool, ignorant of the supreme wisdom of God’s providence, sins and is corrected, he regards either God or men as responsible for the hardships he suffers.

                                            ~St Maximos the Confessor

June 17

All the discourses of our Lord contain these four elements; commandments, doctrines, threats and promises. With the help of these we patiently accept every kind of hardship, such as fasting, vigils, sleeping on the ground, toil and labor in acts of service, insults, dishonor, torture, death and so on. ‘Helped by the words of Thy lips,’ says the psalmist, ‘I have kept to difficult paths’ (Psalm 17:4 LXX)….

When the intellect practices the virtues correctly, it advances in moral understanding. When it practices contemplation, it advances in spiritual knowledge. The first leads the spiritual contestant to discriminate between virtue and vice; the second leads the participant to the inner qualities of incorporeal and corporeal things. Finally, the intellect is granted the grace of theology when, carried on wings of love beyond these two former stages, it is taken up into God and with the help of the Holy Spirit discerns–as far as this is possible for the human intellect–the qualities of God….

Whatever a man loves he inevitably clings to, and in order not to lose it he rejects everything that keeps him from it. So he who loves God cultivates pure prayer, driving out every passion that keeps him from it.

                                                          ~St Maximos the Confessor

June 16

When the sun rises and casts its light on the world, it reveals both itself and the things it illumines. Similarly, when the Sun of righteousness rises in the pure intellect (nous), he reveals both Himself and the inner principles of all that has been and will be brought into existence by Him.

Fear of God is of two kinds. The first is generated in us by the threat of punishment. Is is through such fear that we develop in due order self-control, patience, hope in God and dispassion; and it is from dispassion that love comes. The second kind of fear is linked with love and constantly produces reverence in the soul, so that it does not grow indifferent to God because of the intimate communion of its love.

The first kind of fear is expelled by perfect love when the soul has acquired this and is no longer afraid of punishment (1 John 4:18). The second kind, as we have already said, is always found united with perfect love. The first kind of fear is referred to in the following two verses: ‘Out of fear of the Lord men shun evil’ (Proverbs 16:6), and ‘Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Psalm 111:10). The second kind is mentioned in the following verses: ‘Fear of the Lord is pure, and endures forever’ (Psalm 19:9 LXX), and ‘Those who fear the Lord will not want for anything’ (Psalm 34:10 LXX).

~St Maximos the Confessor

June 15

We carry about with us impassioned images of the things we have experienced. If we can overcome these images we shall be indifferent to the things which they represent. For fighting against the thoughts of things is much harder than fighting against the things themselves, just as to sin in the mind is easier than to sin through outward action….

‘Put to death therefore whatever is earthly in you: unchastity, uncleanness, passion, evil desire and greed’ (Colossians 3:5). Earth is the name St Paul gives to the will of the flesh. Unchastity is his word for the actual committing of sin. Uncleanness is how he designates assent to sin. Passion is his term for impassioned thoughts. By evil desire he means the simple act of accepting the thought and the desire. And greed is his name for what generates and promotes passion. All these St Paul ordered us to mortify as ‘aspects’ expressing the will of the flesh….

First the memory brings some passion-free thought into the intellect (nous). By its lingering there, passion is aroused. When the passion is not eradicated, it persuades the intellect to assent to it.Once this assent is given, the actual sin is then committed. Therefore, when writing to converts from paganism, St Paul in his wisdom orders them first to eliminate the actual sin and then systematically to work back to the cause. The cause, as we have already said, is greed, which generates and promotes passion. I think that greed in this case means gluttony, because this is the mother and nurse of unchastity. For greed is a sin not only with regard to possessions but also with regard to food, just as self-control likewise relates to both food and possessions.

                                                                                        ~St Maximos the Confessor

June 14

Do not befoul your intellect by clinging to thoughts filled with anger and sensual desire. Otherwise you will lose your capacity for pure prayer and fall victim to the demon of listlessness….

When the intellect associates with evil and sordid thoughts it loses its intimate communion with God….

Do not listen gleefully to gossip at your neighbor’s expense or chatter to a person who likes finding fault. Otherwise you will fall away from divine love and find yourself cut off from eternal life….

‘But I say to you,’ says the Lord, ‘love your enemies…do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you’ (Matthew 5:44). Why did He command this? To free you from hatred, irritation, anger and rancor, and to make you worthy of the supreme gift of perfect love. And you cannot attain such love if you do not imitate God and love all men equally. For God loves all men equally and wishes them ‘to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Timothy 2:4).

~St Maximos the Confessor

June 13

You should know that you have been greatly benefited when you have suffered deeply because of some insult or indignity: for by means of the indignity self-esteem has been driven out of you….

A man who has been assiduous in acquiring the fruits of love will not cease loving even if he suffers a thousand calamities. Let Stephen, the disciple of Christ, and others like him persuade you of the truth of this (Acts 7:60). Our Lord Himself prayed for His murderers and asked the Father to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing (Luke 23:34)….

If love is long-suffering and kind (1 Corinthians 12:4), a man who is contentious and malicious clearly alienates himself from love. And he who is alienated from love is alienated from God, for God is love….

If a man desires something, he makes every effort to attain it. But of all things which are good and desirable the divine is incomparably the best and the most desirable. How assiduous then, we should be in order to attain what is of its very nature good and desirable….

Stop defiling your flesh with shameful deeds and polluting your soul with wicked thoughts; then the peace of God will descend upon you and bring you love.

~St Maximos the Confessor

June 12

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….

If we detect any trace of hatred in our hearts against any man whatsoever for committing any fault, we are utterly estranged from love for God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man….

He who loves Me, says the Lord, will keep My commandments (John 14:15, 23); and ‘this is My commandment, that you love one another’ (John 15:12). Thus he who does not love his neighbor fails to keep the commandment, and so cannot love the Lord….

Blessed is he who can love all men equally….

He who gives alms in imitation of God does not discriminate between the wicked and the virtuous, the just and the unjust, when providing for men’s bodily needs. He gives equally to all according to their need, even though he prefers the virtuous man to the bad man because of the probity of his intention….

When you are insulted by someone or humiliated, guard against angry thoughts, lest they arouse a feeling of irritation, and so cut you off from love and place you in the realm of hatred.

                                                                       ~St Maximos the Confessor

June 11

Love is a holy state of the soul, disposing it to value knowledge of God above all created things. We cannot attain lasting possession of such love while we are still attached to anything worldly….

The person who loves God values knowledge of God more than anything created by God, and pursues such knowledge ardently and ceaselessly….

If everything that exists was made by God and for God, and God is superior to the things made by him, he who abandons what is superior and devotes himself to what is inferior shows that he values things made by God more than God Himself….

Since the soul is more noble than the body and God incomparably more noble than the world created by Him, he who values the body more than the soul and the world created by God more that the Creator Himself is simply a worshiper of idols.

~St Maximos the Confessor

June 10

…everything may be understood in terms of its purpose….Now the purpose of our life is blessedness or, what is the same thing, the kingdom of heaven or of God. This is not only to behold the Trinity, supreme in Kingship, but also to receive an influx of the divine and, as it were, to suffer deification; for by this influx, what is lacking and imperfect in us is supplied and perfected. And the provision of such influx, of what is needed, is the food of spiritual beings….Such then is our purpose, in so far as we can understand it. We must now see how we can attain it….
…

Love of praise and love of material wealth are the progeny of ignorance. Having no experience of true blessings and no knowledge of noetic realities, the soul has adopted such bastard offspring, thinking that riches can supply its needs….Love of praise does not derive from any lack on the part of the body, for it satisfies no physical need. Inexperience and ignorance of primal goodness and true glory give rise to it. Indeed, ignorance is the root of all evils. For no one who has once grasped as he should the true nature of things–from where each thing comes and how it is perverted–can then totally disregard his own purpose and be dragged down to worldly things. The soul does not want a good that is only apparent.

                                                                          ~St Theodoros the Great Ascetic

June 9

We have been commanded not to revile or abuse in return those who revile and insult us, but rather to speak well of them and to bless them (Matthew 5:44). For in so far as we are at peace with men, we fight again the demons; but when we feel rancor towards our brothers and fight against them, we are at peace with the demons, whom we have been taught to hate ‘with perfect hatred’ (Psalm 139:22), fighting against them without mercy.

                                                                              ~St Theodoros the Great Ascetic