Saturday. [Eph. 2:11-13; Luke 13:18-29]

   Strive to enter in at the strait gate. The strait gate is a life not according to your will, not according to your desires, not for pleasing yourself; the wide gate is a life according to all of the stirrings and strivings of a passion-filled heart, without the slightest refusal of oneself in anything. Thus, the gate to the kingdom is self-constraint. Restrain yourself in all things and it will be the same as pressing or pushing against a door to open it and squeeze your way through it. How and with what should you restrain yourself? With the commandments of God, which are opposed to the passion-filled stirrings of the heart. When you begin to be angry with someone, remember the Lord’s commandment not to give place to wrath, and with this restrain your heart. When lustful stirrings come, bring to mind the prohibition against even looking at a woman with lust, and with this restrain your lustfulness. When you want to judge someone, remember what the Lord said, that by judging you deprive yourself of intercession before the Judge of heavenly things, and with this restrain your arrogance. Do likewise in relation to every sinful movement [of the heart]. Gather against each of them sayings from Divine Scripture and keep them in your memory. As soon as some bad desire comes from your heart, bind it immediately with a saying directed against it, or tie up all of your desires and thoughts in advance with Divine words, and walk in them; you will be as if in bonds. But in these bonds lies freedom, or a free path to the Kingdom of God.