When a man lives deeply in these transcendent truths, they nourish and satisfy his soul and cause him to live beyond the normal bounds of his existence. He becomes aware of an Existence above all other existent things—beyond the sun, the moon, the earth; beyond life and death itself. This is the apex of spirituality: that a person enter a state of being beyond his mere temporal life. - Fr Matthew the Poor

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 Despondency  is  a  slackness  of  soul,  a  weakening  of  the  mind,  neglect  of  asceticism,  hatred  of  the  vow made. It is  the blessing of worldlings. It accuses God of being merciless and without love for men. It  is  being  languid  in  singing  psalms,  weak  in  prayer, stubbornly  bent  on  service,  resolute  in  manual  labour, indifferent in obedience

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For the heart directs and governs all the other organs of the body. And when grace pastures the heart, it rules over all the members and the thoughts. This is so because the heart is the place where the mind and thoughts are found.- St Macarius the Great

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We must also know, beloved brethren, that every secret converse, every good care o f the intellect directed toward God and every meditation upon spir­ itual things is delimited by prayer, is called by the name o f prayer, and under its name is comprehended; whether you speak o f various readings, or the cries of a mouth glorifying God, or sorrowing reflection on the Lord, or making bows with the body, or psalmody in verses, or all the other things from which the teaching of genuine prayer ensues. From genuine prayer the love of God is born, for love comes of prayer.

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For our Lord came for this reason, that He might change and transform and renew and recreate the soul which had been overturned by the passions…mingling with it His own Spirit of divinity… to make new men, anointing them which His own light of knowledge, that He might put in them the new wine which is His Spirit

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Those upon whom you shed a ray of your love could no longer bear to live among people. In search of their Beloved, they renounced every physical love, becoming foreigners to all. They gave up all the pleasures of this life, seeking the way of their Beloved in tears. They felt unworthy of his beauty; finding themselves on this blessed quest, they wept ...

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My child, you will not have to evoke My presence painfully. I shall be faithful to the appointment which I have made with you. I shall do more than wait for you in this Galilee of memories. Now I go before you, I shall lead you there. When your heart is once again fixed on Galilee, the One who is guiding you will make Himself known to you, and He will speak to you...

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Just as the root of the vine ministers and distributes to the branches the enjoyment of its own natural and inherent qualities, so the Only-begotten Word of God imparts to the Saints, as it were, an affinity to His own nature which is that of God the Father, by giving them the Spirit...

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“This is how you pray continually- not by offering prayer in words, but by joining yourself to God through your whole way of life, so that your life becomes one continuous and uninterrupted prayer.” - St Basil the Great

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Eucharist (thanksgiving) is the state of perfect man. Eucharist is the life of paradise. Eucharist is the only full and real response of man to God’s creation, redemption and gift of heaven. But this perfect man who stands before God is Christ. In Him alone all that God has given man was fulfilled and brought back to heaven. He alone is the perfect Eucharistic Being. He is the Eucharist of the world. In and through this Eucharist the whole creation becomes what it always was to be and yet failed to be.- Fr Alexander Schmemann

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You are He, O Lord, with whom we have laid our life. O Lord, who fills all, guard us in every place where we shall go. And the compunction that has become ours through prayer, and the contentment of heart of upright living, guard them for us, unstolen and without regret …

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When the Christian begins to perceive the true dimensions of the Sacrament, he is filled with the desire to approach it more and more closely. Thus, the life of the faithful Christian goes from Liturgy to Liturgy. His chief concern is how to offer a more acceptable presentation before God every time; how to conform his own presentation to that of Christ before the Heavenly Father; how to attain to a greater fulness of divine love, how to become a worthy disciple of the Lord.- Elder Zacharias

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How can one describe the state of the spirit to whom God is revealed as I AM? His closeness to one’s heart is so tangible that joy in Him is like light. He is kind and gentle, and I can speak to Him intimately, face to Face, address Him- ‘HE WHO IS’. And at the same time I realise that this I AM and this HE WHO IS is all Being.

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They said of Abba Macarius the Great that he became, as it is written, a god upon earth, because, just as God protects the world, so Abba Macarius would cover the faults which he saw, as though he did not see them; and those which he heard, as though he did not hear them.

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St. Macarius said, “Call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ with a humbled heart and let it flow from your lips, then ruminate on it. Don’t let it only be in your mind, but be alert when you call on Him saying, my Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.When you do this, in silence, you will find that His Divinity rests in you”.

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Even after being washed clean in water mingled with Spirit in holy baptism, we still carry within ourselves the inclination and habit to return to our former condition. If we do not preserve, guard and cultivate the seed of Grace given to us, we will be deprived of its vivifying power. Then, as Christ warned us, we will be worse off than we were before. In order to preserve the Grace and not return to our former delusions, we must continuously, day by day, minute by minute, unite ourselves with the Way in metanoia (repentance). Metanoia- realigning ourselves to the Way, calling on Him, yearning to be cleansed in spirit, being forgiven by Him, and then forgiving everyone and everything- this is the very essence and foundation of the life of His followers.

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“When a man severs himself from evil, he gains an exact understanding of all the sins he has committed against God; for he does not see his sins unless he severs himself from them with a feeling of revulsion. Those who have reached this level pray to God with tears, and are filled with shame when they recall their evil love of the passions.”- St Isaiah the Solitary

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In the beginning, man was created in a state of pristine simplicity, pure awareness. His thoughts and memories were not diversified and fragmented as they are today, but were simple and one pointed.He knew no mental distraction. While being wiser than any human being today, he was in a state of innocence, like a child, and in this state he lived in deep personal communion with God The Way and with the rest of creation, holding spiritual converse with them.

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Abouna will be remembered by countless people as a father, their father, discipling his children through who he was more than by what he spoke, leading them not to himself, but to the Lord. Having no intention of leaving a legacy or being remembered by anyone, he wished to come and go without moving the air in his space. Yet he has left the greatest legacy that will be remembered by his spiritual children for all their lives.

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