Seeds of Transformation and Victory

"Our thoughts must be turned over to God, such that their effects will be positive. Yes, we need to encourage ourselves in our inner monologue, but most importantly, we need to bring God into our thinking and hearts by prayer. Then our thoughts will become seeds of transformation and victory in our lives, aiding and abetting us to fulfill God’s purposes."

- Hieromonk Calinic (Berger)

Turning Towards the Son

"The sun is in the middle, and all of our planets go around it, all are drawn in toward it, and all turn some side of themselves towards it. What the sun is in the material world, God is in the spiritual world - the rational sun. Bring your thoughts to heaven, and what will you see there? Angels, who, according to the word of the Lord, ever see the face of their heavenly Father. All bodiless spirits and all saints in heaven and turned towards God, all direct their mental eyes toward Him, and do not wish to turn away from Him, because of the ineffable blessedness which flows from this vision of the face of God. But what the Angels and saints do in the heavens, we should learn to do on earth: get used to the angelic, unceasing standing before God in our hearts."

- Saint Theophan the Recluse

If Christ were to walk in this world today...

"If Christ were to walk in this world today, do you know what would happen to Him?  He would be placed in a mental institution and given psychotherapy, just as would His saints.  The world would crucify Him today just as it did two thousand years ago, for the world has not learned a thing, except more devious forms of hypocrisy.”

- Father Seraphim Rose

Lying in the Grave

"...unless a man imagines to himself that he has been lying for three years in the grave and under the earth, he will never die to himself." 

- Abba Moses

Christ...the Only Exit

“Christ is the only exit from this world; all other exits-sexual rapture, political utopia, economic independence-are but blind alleys in which rot the corpses of the many that have tried them.”

- Father Seraphim Rose

Bathing in the Shallow Pool of Human Thought

"To the superficial and the guilty it is more comfortable to bathe in the shallow pool of human thought than in the dangerous depths of Christ."

- Saint Nikolai Velimirovich

Music and Prayer Releases One from the World

"...See how music can release one from the world?...And if music so releases one from the world, then so much more does prayer."

- Saint Barsanuphius of Optina