How to process the daily news

 

The newspapers present us daily with the Calvary of suffering humanity.  Reading them should inspire us to compassion and prayer. 

Unrepairable?

We must never believe that our sinful state is beyond repair.  We must be confident that there is always forgiveness for us.  All we need to do to be forgiven is to ask. 

When others profit from your humility

We must be humble before God.  If mortal men abuse us or profit from our humility, too bad!  Mortal men have often profited from the humility of the saints.  Don’t concern yourself with this though, the only thing that is important is your attitude towards God. 

 



On attachment to and use of material things

 

We should not allow ourselves to be ruled by thoughts of material things, nor should we dwell on them.  Rather, we should be detached from that which is material.  Living our lives with detachment allows us to undertake our various duties more easily and painlessly.  This detachment is possible only through two means. 

The first is the remembrance of death; we must live each day as though it were the last day of our entire life.  If we do this, we will be able to determine what in our lives is essential and what is not.  The relativity of the  things that are non-essential will become obvious to us and we will remain focused on what is actually important. 

The other means by which we achieve detachment from material things is prayer.  Prayer must be present in all of our activities.  Every time we begin a task, we must ask God to help us.  This does not mean that we should use prayer to help us acquire material things, but that it should be a spiritual aid that we use at all times.  God will then give us the material things that will be to the benefit of our souls, and more importantly, He will help us to live every moment for Himself, and to use material things in a spiritual way. 

On difficult times

When we are having difficulties, we need to acquire a spirit of contrition, pray and remain patient.  We have to endure less than satisfactory circumstances because we are called to be in the world in order to undergo affliction.  However, this shouldn’t be a cause for despair, but rather, we must continue our struggle.  This is our invisible and constant battle, this is the yoke that Christ has given us. 



Take the bull by the horns

Struggle against your passions from the moment they appear in your mind.  Take the bull by the horns and fight against them with all your strength, because if you don’t, then they will become habits and get entrenched in you.  Eventually they will seem to be completely normal to you and not passions at all, and then your struggle will be extremely difficult. 

The royal path

A person should never make great leaps and bounds in the spiritual life.  He should always move towards God progressively; little by little, but consistently.  It is the middle way that is the royal path.  +Elder Sergei of Vanves 

Note:  the above image is not the book being quoted from

Rational arguments in the spiritual life

In the spiritual life, rational arguments are not the best that we have at our disposal, even for those of us for whom reason is valued above all else.  

Our responsibility toward others

Prayer is the language of the next world.  Sooner or later, we will have to live in that world.  When we go to another country to live there, we must speak their language.  In order to learn the language of the age to come, we must pray. 

Repent for these things

 

It is necessary to repent for not sufficiently loving others and for not being sensitive enough to the misfortunes of others. 

 

Go to the spiritual gym

 

Prayer should not depend upon our mood or good will.  If we are in a bad state, it’s because we are filled with sin.  Thus, we need to repent.  Every day, examine your conscience and repent.  Force yourself to pray regularly every day.  If you don’t want to do that, then you need to repent of that.  You must understand how necessary this is.   Know that the devil lurks and waits to destroy your soul, and that you are always in danger.  Prayer alone will give your soul the strength to resist.  In order to acquire spiritual muscles, you have to go to the spiritual gym. 
 

 

Unworthy of respect

 

 

The more someone seems to us to be unworthy of any respect,

the more we need to respect them.

On excuses

External circumstances can never serve as

excuses for the deficiencies in our interior life.