You Are Unforgiven If...

“Even if all spiritual fathers, patriarchs, hierarchs, and all the people forgive you, you are unforgiven if you do not repent in action.”

- Saint Kosmas Aitolos

He Who Does Not Forgive

"The drunkard, the fornicator, the proud—he will receive God’s mercy. But he who does not want to forgive, to excuse, to justify consciously, intentionally […] that person closes himself to eternal life before God, and even more so in the present life. He is turned away and not heard."

- Elder Sampson of Russia

Reference: http://morningoffering.blogspot.com/2012/02/forgiveness-forgiveness-is-cure-for.html

Love the Trees

'Fr. Amphilochios, the geronta or "elder" on the island of Patmos when I first stayed there, would have been in full agreement. "Do you know," he said, "that God gave us one more commandment, which is not recorded in Scripture? It is the commandment "love the trees." Whoever does not love trees, so he believed, does not love God. "When you plant a tree," he insisted, "you plant hope, you plant peace, you plant love, and you will receive God's blessing."'

- Taken from an essay by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

A Seductive Darkness of the Heart and Intellect

“We live in a kind of seductive darkness of the heart and intellect, but the Lord Jesus Christ is our enlightenment. The saints always see us by the grace of God, because they are in God and God is in them. They are one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), and the Lord sees everything, hears everything. Therefore when, for instance, in church you look upon the images of God's saints, believe that they see you, and above all, that they see your heart.”

- Saint John of Kronstadt

Despair

"But first we must struggle with the demon of dejection who casts the soul into despair. We must drive him from our heart. It was this demon that did not allow Cain to repent after he had killed his brother, or Judas after he had betrayed his Master".

- Saint John Cassian

Binding the Demon

"He advised me: If I should understand that a demon in the form of a man has come as if to teach me, then I need to say, "If you are from God, then say along with me, 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,'" for the enemy does not want to say, 'Have mercy on me.' All who have the Jesus prayer can bind the demon with it; however, the enemy nevertheless prepares many temptations for such a person, and the enemy can only be completely conquered through humility and repentance."

- Father Proclus (Niceu)

Reference: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/47107.htm

The Deepest Peace

"Often during the day I have been a great sinner, and at night, after prayer, I have gone to rest, justified and whiter than snow by the grace of the Holy Spirit, with the deepest peace and joy in my heart! How easy it will be for the Lord to save us too in the evening of our life, at the decline of our days! O save, save, save me, most gracious Lord; receive me in Thy heavenly Kingdom! Everything is possible to Thee!"

- Saint John of Kronstadt