Elder Paisios the New of Mount Athos: On Prayer

Variety in vigil is very helpful. When one is alone, he may first do full prostrations, then small ones, and then say the Jesus Prayer sitting down or kneeling, and repeat this sequence depending on the time he has to offer. This method is every helpful for it creates spiritual liveliness and drives away the weariness of inaction through interspersed spiritual movements, prostrations. Moreover, it drives away sleepiness and brings spiritual lucidity during prayer.

–The Orthodox Word [2003], no. 229, p. 83

Elder Paisios the New of Mount Athos: On Prayer and Sleeplessness

Prayer, combined with a curtailment of sleep, nourishes the soul–in addition to granting it spiritual alertness–and safeguards it, like a child in its mother’s embrace. . . .

Vigil with prayer conveys health and life toward spiritual development, for it cleanses and sensitizes the mind, humbles the unruly flesh, and warms up the heart with love for god; and the soul receives Divine Grace.

Prayer during the night is much more beneficial than prayer during the day, just as nighttime rain is more favorable to plants than rain during the day.

Those who struggle during vigil prayerfully, yet are a little drowsy, greatly move God. This is not the case with those who are well rested and feel no drowsiness. Those who fall asleep in their stasidi [church seat] are a thousand times better off tan those who sleep in their bed. Nevertheless, we should not waste all our strength on futile things, which will become dust one day and then offer God our tiredness together with our yawning, like the sacrifice that Cain offered. When tiredness is justified and we are sleepy, it is better for sleep to steal one or two minutes from us during the vigil and for our drowsiness to recede naturally, rather than to drive it away earlier with coffee. Oftentimes coffee agitates our nerves, especially if we are not calm by nature. It is preferable for someone to keep vigil fewer hours with pure prayer, rather than to hasten for the night to pass without any spiritual benefit and afterward spend the whole day prostrate like a corpse.

–The Orthodox Word [2003], no. 229, pp. 79, 80-81

Elder Paisios the New of Mount Athos: On Suffering with Others

Those who do not co-suffer with those in pain, suffer from a fatal spiritual illness: mercilessness. Those who are annoyed by the moaning of sick people and react angrily because they cannot concentrate, suffer from many spiritual illnesses.

–The Orthodox Word [2003], no. 229, p. 76

Elder Ambrose of Optina: On Sinful Thoughts

“Sinful thoughts continually disturb a man. But if he does not cooperate with them, then he is not guilty of them.”

“One ascetic woman was besieged for a long time with unclean thoughts. When the Lord came and cast them away from her, she called to Him: ‘Where were you before now, O my sweet Jesus?’ The Lord answered: ‘I was in your heart.’ She said then: ‘How could that be? For my heart was full of unclean thoughts.’ The Lord said to her: ‘Know that I was in your heart, for you were not disposed to the unclean thoughts, but strove rather to be free of them; and when you were not able to be free, you struggled and grieved. By this you prepared a place for Me in your heart.’”

–Elder Ambrose of Optina, p. 255

Elder Ambrose of Optina: On the Power of Repenance

About the power of repentance, the Elder said: “One man sinned but repented, and this continued all his life. Finally he repented and died. An evil spirit came for his soul and said: ‘He’s mine.’ The Lord said, ‘No, no, he has repented.’ ‘But he repented and then sinned again,’ said the devil. The Lord said to him: ‘If you, being evil, take him back after he repented to Me, then how can I not accept him if after sinning he has turned to Me in repentance? You forget that you are evil, and I am good.’”

–Elder Ambrose of Optina, pp. 253-254

Elder Ambrose of Optina: On Laziness and Depression

About laziness and depression the Elder said: “Boredom is the grandson of depression, and laziness is the daughter. To send her away, labor actively–do not be lazy in prayer, then boredom will pass and zeal will come. And if you add to this patience and humility, then you will escape much evil.”

–Elder Ambrose of Optina, p. 252

Elder Paisios the New of Mount Athos: On Theology

Theology is the word of God, which is apprehended by pure, humble and spiritually regenerated souls, and not the beautiful words of the mind, which are crafted with literary art and expressed by the legal or worldly spirit. . . .

Theology that is taught like a science usually examines things historically and, consequently, things are understood externally. Since patristic ascesis and inner experience are absent, this kind of theology is full of uncertainty and questions. For with the mind one cannot grasp the Divine Energies if he does not first practice ascesis and live the Divine Energies, that the Grace of God might be energized within him.

Whoever thinks that he can come to know the mysteries of God through external scientific theory, resembles the fool who wants to see Paradise through a telescope.

Those who struggle patristically become empirical theologians through the visitation of the Grace of the Holy Spirit. All those who have an external education, in addition to the internal enlightenment of the soul, may describe the divine mysteries and interpret them correctly, as did many Holy Fathers.

If, however, one does not become spiritually related to the Holy Fathers and wants to take up translating or writing, he will wrong both the Holy Fathers and himself, as well as the people, with his spiritual cloudiness.

Neither is it right for someone to theologize using someone else’s theology, because he will resemble an impotent man who adopts others’ children, presents them as his own and pretends to be the father of a large family. The Holy Fathers took the divine word or personal experiences from their hearts: the result of spiritual battles against evil and the fire of temptations, which they confessed humbly, or, out of love, wrote down in order to help us. . . .

Those who are grateful towards God for everything and constantly attend to themselves humbly and look after God’s creatures and creation with kindness, theologize and thus become the most faithful theologians, even if illiterate. They are like the illiterate shepherds who observe the weather in the countryside, day and night, and become good meteorologists.

–The Orthodox Word [2003], no. 229, pp. 86-88

Elder Ambrose of Optina: On Almsgiving

On almsgiving the Elder said: “St. Dimitry of Rostov wrote: ‘Even if a man comes to you on a horse and asks you for alms, give it to him. You will not have to answer for how he uses it.’”

Also: “St. John Chyrsostom says, ‘Begin by giving away what you do not need, what is lying around unsued, to those who are in need. Then you will begin to give what you can according to your means, and finally you will be ready to give away all that you have.’”

–Elder Ambrose of Optina, p. 251

St Theophan the Recluse: On the Seriousness of Repentance

[A]lthough we must not despair of the possibility for our conversion and salvation no matter how weak [because previously ignored] is the call for conversion to a virtuous life, we must always think timidly and fearfully of our weak condition. Might we have sunk so far that we have reached the final opportunity to receive a grace-filled awakening? Could we have barred all inroads that divine grace, ever desiring our salvation, might take to act upon us? Is this the last time that grace may be drawing nigh unto us with the aim of bringing us to our senses and putting a stop to our disgraceful condition? Thus, as weak as such a call may be, we must ever more speedily rush to make use of it with all firmness of intention, though this may require more discernment, and intensify it to the fullest extent of human freedom. Obviously, such intensification is nothing other than the opening up of ourselves to this seeking and sought-for grace. We must open up, for through our falls we have become more and more hardened and closed to grace, in first one and then another respect.

–The Path to Salvation, p. 125

St Theophan the Recluse: On How to Soften One’s Insensitive Heart

At the very onset of even a slight sense of your sinfulness and the danger of remaining in it, delve ever deeper into yourself, and with even greater force of thought conquer yourself with threats and sobering ideas; using them, shake up and soften your insensitive heart, as a heavy hammer softens a rough stone.

Remember your fate. Say to yourself: “Alas, soon will come death.” . . . Do not estrange yourself from this hour of death. . . . Then imagine clearly what will happen to you at the time of death and afterwards. . . . Your secret sins will be reproached before all the angels and saints. There, before everyone’s face, you will stand alone with your deeds. . . . Feel all this vividly and force yourself to remain in it until you are filled with fear and trembling.

Then turn to God and place yourself, defiled and weighed down by many sins, before the face of Him, the omnipotent, omniscient, all-gracious and long-suffering! . . . [H]asten to awaken and strengthen within yourself godly pity and sorrow.

Remember that you are a Christian redeemed by the blood of Christ, cleansed with the water of Baptism. You have received the gift of the Holy Spirit; you have sat at the table of the Lord and are nourished by His Body and Blood. And you have flouted all this for the sake of sin that destroys you! Ascend in thought upon Golgotha, and understand what your sins have cost. Will you really still wound the head of the Lord with the thorns of your sins? Will you still nail Him to the Cross, pierce His side and mock His long-suffering? Or perhaps you do not see that by sinning you participate in tormenting the Saviour, and thereby share a part in the tormentors’ lot. But if you abandon sin and repent you will partake of the power of His death. Choose one or the other: either crucify Him, then perish eternally–or crucify yourself, and inherit eternal life with Him.

Consider further what that sin you cling to is. It is an evil more disastrous than all evils. It separates you from God, wreaks havoc on your soul and body, torments your conscience, brings upon you God’s punishment in life and at death; and after death it sends you to hell, closing Paradise to you forever. What a monster it is to people! Bring to your sense all the evil of sin, and force yourself to abhor it and reject it.

Finally, look at sin from the point of view of the devil, who was its first creator and propagator, and see for whom you work by sinning. God has done and will do everything for you, but you do not want to please Him. The devil has done nothing for you, only tryannizes you with sin, but you willingly and indefatigably work for him. You befriend him through sin, and he does evil to you through it. He entices you to sin by promising its sweetness, but those who fall into sin he torments and tortures. . . . Realize all this and arouse yourself to hatred for this man-hater and all his works.

–The Path to Salvation, pp. 137-139