St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)
What was this sight, which brought the onlookers to total bewilderment? What was this sight, which sealed the lips of the onlookers with silence, and yet struck their souls? They came as to a spectacle, just to satisfy their curiosity; they left the scene beating their breasts, carrying away a horrifying astonishment… What was this sight?
Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)
Rating: 10|Votes: 8
The soul that is capable of gratitude to God will be saved. The soul that is incapable of gratitude to God—disregarding the life it has received from Him, disregarding all the blessings, and the trials that impart wisdom to that soul—condemns itself to the same fate as did the ungrateful spirits, the bodiless beings we call demons, condemn themselves. And the ungrateful person makes himself like the demons, and like Judas.
Bread strengtheneth man's heart (Ps. 103:17), the prophet foretold of a certain miraculous bread, which, unlike ordinary, material bread that strengthens the body, is to strengthen man's heart. Our heart is in need of strengthening! It was frightfully shaken when we fell, and cannot by itself stop wavering. It is continually shaken by various passions. Fallen man in his blindness preaches to no purpose and in vain about the firmness of human will.
Rating: 6,3|Votes: 7
Here is another meaning of the colt of an ass. It is an image of every person who is led by irrational desires, deprived of spiritual freedom, attached to the passions and habits of fleshly life. Christ’s teaching looses the ass from its attachment; that is, from fulfilling its sinful and fleshly will.
Rating: 10|Votes: 7
I will say of them what has already been said of them; I will pronounce the sentence that was already pronounced. I will say it with bitterness of heart, but without mistake, because I am merely repeating the Apostle’s words, the words of God. The widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth (1 Tim. 5:5-6). Do not think that these words are directed only at widows according to the flesh! No, they apply even more succinctly to me and you, who have renounced the world to serve Christ.
