CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"Rise from love of the world and love of pleasure. Put care aside, strip your

mind, refuse your body. Prayer, after all, is a turning away from the world,

visible and invisible. What have I in heaven? Nothing except simply to cling

always to You in undistracted prayer. Wealth pleases some, glory others,

possessions others, but what I want is to cling to God and to put the hopes of

my dispassion in Him (cf. Ps. 72:25, 28)."



St. John Climacus.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"But I am poor and needy; Make haste to me, O God! You are my help and my

deliverer; O Lord, do not delay."  Psalms 70:5

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"When you find someone arguing, and contesting what is true and self-evident,

break off the dispute and give way to such a man, since his intellect has been

petrified. For just as bad water ruins good wines, so harmful talk corrupts

those who are virtuous in life and character."



St. Antony the Great.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good

conscience, and from sincere faith,"  1 Timothy 1:5

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"What tongue can describe the heart of the divine mercy? What mind is not amazed

by the riches of such great love? The psalmist was thinking of these riches of

divine love when he said: 'My helper, I will sing a psalm to You. It is You, O

God, Who are my protector, my God, my mercy.' Carefully weighing the labors

surrounding our humanity, he called God his helper. He calls his 'protector' the

One Who protects us in the midst of our present distress until we come to

eternal rest. But bearing mind that God sees our evil deeds and bears with them,

that He puts up with our sins and still preserves us for His rewards because of

repentance, he could not just speak of God as being  merciful but called Him

mercy itself, saying 'My God, my Mercy.'. "



St. Gregory the Great.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives

in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of

God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."  Galatians 2:20

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"Faith, therefore, takes the place of that which escapes our knowledge, being by

its own security a guarantee for what is invisible. So the Apostle says of the

faithful soul: 'he endured as seeing Him that is invisible' (Heb. 11:27). Hence

foolish is the man who claims that it is possible to know the divine nature by a

knowledge that is vain and futile. Nor is any man so great as to be able to

equate his reason with the Lord. 'For who is in the clouds,' says David (Ps.

88:7), 'can be compared to the Lord?' What we seek is hardly so small that it

can be grasped by the reasoning of insignificant human nature."



St. Gregory of Nyssa.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"And those who know Your name will put their trust in You; For You, Lord, have

not forsaken those who seek You. Sing praises to the Lord, who dwells in Zion!

Declare His deeds among the people."  Psalms 9:10-11

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"How can they [Christians] cleanse their mind, brighten their intellect, and

beautify all the powers of the soul, if they do not partake of the Body and

Blood of our Lord, which is the true purification, the true beauty, the true

illumination, and the true nobility of the soul, as the divine Chrysostom says?



St. Macarius of Corinth.



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"Be a father to orphans, and be like a husband to their mother; you will then be

like a son of the Most High, and he will love you more than does your mother." 

Sirach 4:10

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"We confess, then, that He [Christ] assumed all the natural and innocent

passions of man. For He assumed the whole man and all man's attributes save sin.

For that is not natural, nor is it implanted in us by the Creator, but arises

voluntarily in our mode of life as the result of a further implantation by the

devil, though it cannot prevail over us by force. For the natural and innocent

passions are those which are not in our power, but which have entered into the

life of man owing to the condemnation by reason of the transgression; such as

hunger, thirst, weariness, labour, the tears, the corruption, the shrinking from

death, the fear, the agony with the bloody sweat, the succour at the hands of

angels because of the weakness of the nature, and other such like passions which

belong by nature to every man."



St. John of Damascus.

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"All. then, He [Christ] assumed that He might sanctify all. He was tried and

overcame in order that He might prepare victory for us and give to nature power

to overcome its antagonist, in order that nature which was overcome of old might

overcome its former conqueror by the very weapons wherewith it had itself been

overcome."



St. John of Damascus.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives

in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of

God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."  Galatians 2:20

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"The third [stage of contemplation] is knowledge of the terrible things that

await us before and after death, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures...If in my

uncertainty I lose heart for a while because I have completely failed to do what

I should to the limits of my power, I shall fall lower than Hades...How wretched

I am! What have I brought upon myself, not only through my sins, but rather

through my refusal to repent!...Because of this, I fear that I shall dwell in

Hades with the demons, and I live in dread of the coming judgment, with the

river of fire, the thrones and the open books (cf. Dan. 7:9-12), angels running

ahead, all humankind standing by, everything naked and exposed (cf. Heb. 4:13)

before the fearsome and righteous Judge...Yet finding courage in Thy

inexpressible compassion, In Thy goodness and tender mercy that excel our

understanding, I fall before Thee and entreat Thee, Lord: 'Have mercy upon me, O

Lord, for I am weak' (Ps. 6:2), and forgive me my many crimes...When



...God's grace kindles a sense of deep penitence in the heart, you should allow

your intellect to be bathed in tears of compunction..."



St. Peter of Damaskos.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall

rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name." Psalms 33:20-21

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"When men are not satisfied with what they need so as to remain alive but desire

more, they enslave themselves to passions that disturb the soul, inflicting upon

it thoughts and fantasies that what they have is inadequate."



From the Desert Fathers.



--------------------------------------------------------------

"He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully

will also reap bountifully."  2 Corinthians 9:6

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"It is in the renewing of the mind, and the peace of the thoughts, and the love

and heavenly attachment for the Lord, that the new creation - the Christian - is

distinguished from all the men of the world. This was the purpose of the Lord's

coming to vouchsafe these spiritual blessings to those who truly believe in Him.

Christians have a glory and a beauty and a heavenly wealth which is beyond

words, and it is won with pains, and sweat, and trials, and many conflicts, and

all by the grace of God."



Sts. Barsanuphius & John.



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"Whoever has no rule over his own spirit Is like a city broken down, without

walls."  Proverbs 25:28

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"After a long spell of prayer, do not say that nothing has been gained, for you

have already achieved something. For, after all, what higher good is there than

to cling to the Lord and to persevere in unceasing union with Him?"



St. John Climacus.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Save me, O God, by Your name, And vindicate me by Your strength. Hear my

prayer, O God; Give ear to the words of my mouth."  Psalms 54:1-2

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"God knew the limitation of mankind, you see; and though the grace of being made

in His Image was sufficient to give them knowledge of the Word and through Him

of the Father, as a safeguard against their neglect of this grace, He provided

the works of creation also as means by which the Maker might be known. Nor was

this all. Man's neglect of the indwellilng grace tends ever to increase; and

against this further frailty also God made provision by giving them a law, and

by sending prophets, men whom they knew. Thus, if they were tardy in looking up

to heaven, they might still gain knowledge of their Maker from those close at

hand; for men can learn directly about higher things from other men."



St. Athanasius of Alexandria.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Let all that you do be done with love."  1 Corinthians 16:14

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"However, of this much we must be sure. Never by our sole diligence or zeal nor

by our most tireless efforts can we reach perfection. Human zeal is not enough

to win the sublime rewards of blessedness. The Lord must be there to help us and

to guide our hearts toward what is good. Every moment we must join in the prayer

of David: 'Direct my footsteps along Thy paths so that my feet do not move

astray' (Ps. 16:5) and 'He has settled my feet on a rock and guided my

footsteps' (Ps. 39:3) - all this so that the invisible guide of the human spirit

may direct back towards love of virtue our free will, which in its ignorance of

the good and its obsession with passion is carried headlong into sin."



St. John Cassian.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a

sound mind."  2 Timothy 1:7

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"When it happens that men who are advancing towards spiritual perfection are

partly illuminated (that is, only their mind is enlightened), then they see the

glory of the Lord intelligibly as if in a mirror. This grace from above teaches

them knowledge in a mystical way and confers a revelation of mysteries which

lead them from the contemplation of beings to the knowledge of Him Who is beyond

all beings."



St. Symeon the New Theologian.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not

receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not

received it?"  1 Corinthians 4:7

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"Whatever is obtained as a result of long and persistent prayer will remain."



St. John Climacus.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"But I am poor and needy; Make haste to me, O God! You are my help and my

deliverer; O Lord, do not delay."  Psalms 70:5

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"Any circumstance in which a man finds himself unwillingly is a prison for him.

So be content with whatever circumstances you may now be in, lest by being

ungrateful you punish yourself unwittingly."



St. Anthony the Great.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives

the increase."  1 Corinthians 3:7

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"The highest virtue is to avoid sins: that they should never be done, and the

second to that, at least to amend them when they have been committed. But for

the most part we not only never avoid sins that threaten, but we do not even

open our eyes to them when committed. And the mind of sinners is enveloped in

the deeper darkness, in proportion as it fails to set the deficiency of its own

blindness.. So it is very often brought to pass, by the bounty of God's gift,

that punishment follows on transgression, and stripes open the eyes of the

transgressor after self-security had blinded him in the midst of evil ways."



St. Gregory the Great.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"It is better to trust in the Lord Than to put confidence in man. It is better

to trust in the Lord Than to put confidence in princes."  Psalms 118:8-9

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"There is a way of fortifying ourselves in our struggle described in all

writings, and that is to keep up our courage when we are most fiercely assailed

by evil thoughts, not to yield in the midst of our conflict. For it is one of

the malicious devices of the devil to fill us with shame at the prospect of

being defeated by evil preoccupations, so that we shall be hindered from lifting

our eyes to God in contrition and praying to be freed of them. But let us, by

our continual repentance and interrupted prayer, conquer these delusions; let us

never turn our back to the enemy, even if he deals us a thousand wounds each

day. And let us firmly resolve never to give up this life-giving exercise, even

to our death."



St. Nilus of Sora.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Hear my prayer, O Lord, And give ear to my cry; Do not be silent at my tears;

For I am a stranger with You, A sojourner, as all my fathers were."  Psalms

39:12

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"The wicked one..made his assault [against Christ] from without, not by thoughts

prompted inwardly, just as it was with Adam. For it was not by inward thoughts,

but by the serpent that Adam was assailed. But the Lord repulsed the assault and

dispelled it like a vapour, in order that the passions which assailed Him and

were overcome might be easily subdued by us, and that the new Adam should save

the old."



St. John of Damascus.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"HPraise the Lord, for the Lord is good; Sing praises to His name, for it is

pleasant. For I know that the Lord is great, And our Lord is above all gods." 

Psalms 135:3, 5

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"...we...who do no more than listen to the Scriptures, should devote ourselves

to them and meditate on them so constantly that through our persistence a

longing for God is impressed upon our hearts...For this is what the holy fathers

did before they acquired direct spiritual knowledge."



St. Peter of Damaskos.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Jesus Christ was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because

of our justification."  Romans 4:25

CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN!



"Ask with tears, seek with obedience, knock with patience. For so it goes that

he 'who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be

opened' (Matt. 7:8)."



St. John Climacus.



--------------------------------------------------------------



And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made

perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my

infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  2 Corinthians 12:9

"When you close the doors to your dwelling and are alone you should know that

there is present with you the angel whom God has appointed for each man...This

angel, who is sleepless and cannot be deceived, is always present with you; he

sees all things and is not hindered by darkness. You should know, too, that with

him is God, who is in every place; for there is no place and nothing material in

which God is not, since He is greater than all things and holds all men in His

hand."



St. Antony the Great.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,

are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the

Spirit of the Lord."  2 Corinthians 3:18

"All the material world is as nothing before God, only spiritual beings - that

is, angels and men - are something. Only those creatures have a lasting

existence who are near to God, and have His image and likeness; the remainder

pass away like shadows - 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall

not pass away.' "



St. John of Kronstadt.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King

of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the

King of glory"  Psalms 24:9-10

"You also cannot as yet refute thoughts - it is enough for you if you endure

patiently and call upon Jesus. But if you do not see any sins in yourself, you

are found in line with the Devil: he does not see his sins either, and since he

never repents or blames himself, he thinks that God shows favoritism towards man

because He loves them - but it is for this reason that God loves man, because he

repents and humbles himself. So repent of everything and humble yourself, and

God will save you!"



St. Anatoly of Optina.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who

loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to

him."  John 14:21

"Of a truth our natural passions were in harmony with nature and above nature in

Christ. For they were stirred in Him after a natural manner when He permitted

the flesh to suffer what was proper to it: but they were above nature because

that which was natural did not in the Lord assume command over the will. For no

compulsion is contemplated in Him but all is voluntary. For it was with His will

that He hungered and thirsted and feared and died."



St. John of Damascus.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud, And will come into Egypt"  Isaiah 19:1

"All the faithful are truly anointed priests and kings in the spiritual renewal

brought about through baptism, just as priests and kings were anointed

figuratively in former times. For these anointings were prefigurations of the

truth of our anointing: prefigurations in relation not merely to some of us but

to all of us. For our kingship and priesthood is not of the same form or

character as theirs, even though the symbolic actions are the same. Nor does our

anointing recognize any distinction in nature, grace or calling, in such a way

that those anointed essentially differ one from the other: we have but one and

the same calling, faith and ritual. The true significance of this is that he who

is anointed is pure, dispassionate and wholly consecrated to God now and for

ever."



St. Gregory Palamas.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who

loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to

him."  John 14:21

"...he who has been purified of the passions through inward grief perceives the

hidden mysteries in all the Scriptures and is astonished by them all, especially

by the words and actions recorded in the Holy Gospels. He is amazed to see how

the wisdom of God renders what is difficult easy, so that gradually it deifies

man. He is filled with goodness, so that he loves his enemies; he is merciful,

as his Father is merciful (cf. Luke 6:36); he is dispassionate, as God is

dispassionate; he is endowed with every virtue and is perfect, as the Father is

perfect (cf. Matt. 5:48). In short, the Holy Bible teaches us that what befits

God befits man as well, so that he becomes god by divine adoption."



St. Peter of Damascus.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another." 

Galatians 5:26

"Let us consider, beloved, how the Master continually calls our attention to the

future resurrection, the first fruits of which He has made the Lord Jesus Christ

by raising Him from the dead. Let us consider, beloved, the kind of resurrection

that occurs at regular intervals. Day and night give us examples of

resurrection. The night sleeps, the day rises; the day departs, the night comes

on. Let us take the crops. The sowing - how and in what manner does it take

place? The sower goes out and puts each of the seeds into the soil: when they

fall on the soil, they are dry and bare, and decay. But once they have decayed,

the Master's wondrous Providence makes them rise, and each one increases and

brings forth multiple fruit."



St. Clement of Rome.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"Make Your face shine upon Your servant; Save me for Your mercies' sake. 17 Do

not let me be ashamed, O Lord, for I have called upon You."  Psalms 31:16-17

"Man, as far as his body is concerned, is like a lighted candle. A candle must

be consumed; thus also the body must die. But the soul is immortal, and so our

care also must be more for the soul than for the body. 'For what shall it profit

a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul' (Mk. 8:36) "



St. Seraphim of Sarov.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in You; Let me not be

ashamed; Let not my enemies triumph over me. Indeed, let no one who waits on You

be ashamed."  Psalms 25:1-3

"Reading the Holy Scriptures is like a treasure. With a treasure, you see,

anyone able to find a tiny nugget gains for himself great wealth; likewise in

the case of Sacred Scripture, you can get from a small phrase a great wealth of

thought and immense riches. The Word of God is not only like a treasure, but is

also like a spring gushing with ever flowing waters in a mighty flood."



St. John Chrysostom.



--------------------------------------------------------------



"But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then

they will fast in those days."  Luke 5:35