Category: St Gregory of Sinai

If we do not know what we are like when God makes us, we shall not realize what sin has turned us into.

~St Gregory of Sinai

The lethal poison of the sting of sin is the soul’s passion-charged state. For if by your own free choice you allow yourself to be dominated by the passions you will develop a firm and unchanging propensity to sin.

~St Gregory of Sinai

It is said that in the life to come the angels and saints ever increase in gifts of grace and never abate their longing for further blessings. No lapse or veering from virtue to vice takes place in that life.

~St Gregory of Sinai

You partake of angelic life and attain an incorruptible and hence almost bodyless state when you have cleansed your intellect through tears, have through the power of the Spirit resurrected your soul even in this life, and with the help of the Logos have made your flesh–your natural human form of clay–a resplendent and fiery image of divine beauty. For bodies become incorruptible when rid of their natural humours and their material density.

~St Gregory of Sinai

By ‘many dwelling-places’ (John 14:2) the Savior meant the differing stages of spiritual ascent and states of development in the other world; for although the kingdom of heaven is one, there are many different levels within it. That is to say, there is place for both heavenly and earthy men (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:48) according to their virtue, their knowledge and the degree of deification that they have attained. ‘For there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for one star differs from another star in glory’ (1 Corinthians 15:41); and yet all of them shine in a single diving firmament.

~St Gregory of Sinai

Requitals correspond to our deserts, even if many people think they do not. To some, divine justice gives eternal life; to others, eternal chastisement. Each will be requited according to his actions–according to whether he has passed through this present life in a virtuous or in a sinful manner. The degree or quality of the requital will accord with the state induced in each by either the passions or the virtues, and the differing effects these have had.

~St Gregory of Sinai

Passion-embroiled states are foretastes of hell’s torments, just as the activity of the virtues is a foretaste of the kingdom of heaven. We must realize that the commandments are activities producing effects, and that virtues are states, just as vices that have taken root are also states.

~St Gregory of Sinai

The efficacy of the commandments depends on faith working directly in the heart. Through faith each commandment kindles and activates the soul’s illumination. The fruits of a true and effective faith are self-control and love, its consummation God-given humility, the source and support of love.

~St Gregory of Sinai

A true sanctuary, even before the life to come, is a heart free from distractive thoughts and energized by the Spirit, for all is done and said there spiritually. If we do not attain such a state in this life, we may because of our other virtues be a stone fit for building into the temple of God; but we will not ourselves be a temple or a celebrant of the Spirit.

~St Gregory of Sinai

If you fail to receive grace it is because of your lack of faith and your negligence; if you find it again it is because of your faith and your diligence. For faith and diligence always conduce to progress, while their opposites do the reverse.

~St Gregory of Sinai