St. Peter Damascene
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
The passions are: harshness, trickery, malice, perversity, mindlessness, licentiousness, enticement, dullness, lack of understanding...
Archpriest Andrew Phillips
The Life of St Mary teaches us many things. Perhaps the first and most obvious lesson we can learn from her is that we should never judge, never pre-judge. Who will be saved? It is impossible to answer this question, for it is never too late to repent, even for us. Humanly speaking, when we consider the life of Mary until her twenty-ninth year, we might think that salvation had become impossible for her. And yet the service to her calls her 'the greatest of saints'.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)
Rating: 7,9|Votes: 8
The Lord said to His Apostles about the evil spirits, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting (Mk. 9:29). Here is a new aspect of fasting! Fasting is acceptable to God when it is preceded by the great virtue of mercy; fasting prepares a reward in heaven when it is foreign to hypocrisy and vainglory; fasting works when it is joined with another great virtue—prayer. How does it work? It not only tames the passions in the human body, but it enters into battle with the spirits of evil, and conquers them.
Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)
Rating: 6,5|Votes: 2
So it is also in the spiritual life. As a Christian gradually ascends, the force of spiritual and ascetical labours lifts him on high. Our Lord Jesus Christ said: "Strive to enter in through the narrow gate." That is, the Christian ought to be an ascetic. Not only the monastic, but every Christian. He must take pains for his soul and his life.
Constantina Palmer
Rating: 8|Votes: 5
Giving alms can be done in a variety of ways. The Greek word eleemosyne means “alms, charity, mercy.” In other words, almsgiving is also the act of being merciful, so something as simple as a kind word, or a word not spoken, can be alms.