#philokalia

[asmallorthodoxblog]

"Do not think that you are without fruit because you have no physical children. The soul that is united to Christ bears spiritual children: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."

— St. Peter of Damaskos, A Treasury of Divine Knowledge

[orthodoxadventure]

Keep hell's torments in mind, but know that your Helper is at hand.

Philokalia, Volume 1 by Saint Nikodemos and Saint Makarios. "Twenty-Seven Texts" by Saint Isaiah the Solitary

[mementomori1995]

“If God suffers in the flesh when He is made man, should we not rejoice when we suffer, for we have God to share our sufferings This shared suffering confers the kingdom on us. For he spoke truly who said, ‘If we suffer with Him, then we shall also be glorified with Him’ (Rom. 8:17)...The outcome of every affliction endured for the sake of virtue is joy, of every labor rest, and of every shameful treatment glory; in short, the outcome of all sufferings for the sake of virtue is to be with God, to remain with Him for ever and to enjoy eternal rest”

- Philokalia, Vol. 2, St. Maximos-First Century of Various Texts, p. 170, 73

[onancientpaths]

"To some degree, the ancient practice of philosophy in modernity was transformed [from a set of therapeutic practices] into a theoretical discipline intended to clarify the concepts of science and morality. But that’s not the whole story...In the seventeenth century, Descartes sought out a certain foundation for knowledge in large part because the world was crumbling around him. In the twentieth century, Hans Jonas reconceptualized God and evil in large part because his mother had been killed at Auschwitz. When a student of mine, a mother who’d authorized a surgery for her son that led to his death, asked me in tears if Kant was right that the consequences of an action play no role in determining its moral worth, I realized quite clearly that evaluating Kantian ethics was much more than a game to be played in the insularity of the mind or the classroom.

When everyday life is deeply satisfying, philosophy is indeed the leisurely activity that Stanley Fish describes, simply a pleasurable exercise of our native desire to know. But when everyday life is less than fully satisfying, there will always be people who set out on a quest for meaning. All of a sudden that leisurely desire to know be- comes a pressing desire to find the good life. And when the normal course of everyday life offers very little satisfying to our natures, when we regularly feel the dull aches of bad work, empty leisure, and disoriented politics, then philosophy becomes not just the practice of the few but the need of the many." - Scott Samuelson

[theinwardlight]

The sign of sincere love is to forgive wrongs done to us. It was with such love that the Lord loved the world.

Mark the Ascetic (360-430 AD), On those who think they are made righteous by works

Painting: The Crucifixion with donors and saints Peter and Margaret of Antioch, by the workshop of Cornelis Engebrechtsz (c. 1525/30)

[antiochianorthodoxcumberlandmd]

[byzantine-nectarine]

A beginner’s guide to reading the Philokalia- a collection of texts from the Neptic Fathers of the Church from the 4th to 14th centuries.

[gnosisandtheosis]

via Catholic Memes FB page