OPEN TO ME THE GATES OF REPENTANCE.

[thybeautytheotokos]

“If you wish to know who you are, do not look at who you have been, but at who you were originally created to be.”

— Abba Evagruus the Monk

[thybeautytheotokos]

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they are abominable in their habits; There is none, not even one, who does good. (Psalm 13:1)

[thybeautytheotokos]

[bardskull]

The holy martyr Boniface (to Aglaïs): If I can't find any martyrs and if they bring you back my body, martyred for Christ, will you receive it with honour?

Aglaïs (laughing): You drunken old sinner.

[kmerteuil]

[thybeautytheotokos]

“God often allows us to hit rock bottom so that we will discover that He is the rock at the bottom”

- St. John of Kronstadt

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As the Master Christ hid His divinity, / clothing it in humanity, / and, unseen by us, brought into being His ineffable glory, / likewise didst thou hide thy glory by means of foolishness, / and by the wonder of thy confession wast shown forth as a shepherd of souls, / O venerable Father Gabriel, / entreat Christ God to have mercy on our souls.     

[thybeautytheotokos]

"Through repentance the filth of our foul actions is washed away. After this, we participate in the Holy Spirit, not automatically, but according to the faith, humility and inner disposition of the repentance in which our soul is engaged. For this reason it is good to repent each day as the act of repentance is unending."

~ St. Symeon the New Theologian

[thybeautytheotokos]

“The paralyzed man is any soul that thinks of turning back to the Lord and is brought to Him by these four things: self-condemnation, confession of sins, the promise to renounce evil, and prayer to God.”

— Homily of Great Lent - Second Sunday - The Paralytic, St. Gregory Palamas

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Let Patience have her perfect work (James 1:4a).

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[thybeautytheotokos]

“What prayer did the early saints pray going to their martyrdoms? Or going out into the desert? Before they could form the prayer verbally. “Lord Jesus Christ, thy will be done.” 

I invoke this prayer at every crossroads. From the first words of Genesis to the last words of Revelation it’s on every page. It’s written between every line. “Lord Jesus Christ, thy will be done.” The important lessons are of love, of faith, of enduring, but really of trust in our lord and savior Jesus Christ.”

— Fr. Dmitry Wieber

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[thybeautytheotokos]

"Do you know what is the meaning of the rending in two of the veil of the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Saviour's death on the Cross?

I think that this signifies how the human soul is torn as it strives towards God and towards pleasing God: it is rent in two, becoming spiritual but not ceasing to belong to the fleshly man that dwells in it; it is torn, cutting off and tearing away from itself the will of the outward man, which is sweet, but inclined to sin; its poor heart is torn, tearing itself in half, into pieces; some of them, as unfit but nonetheless kin to it, it tears and throws into the world, but the others it carries like pure incense to its Christ. Oh, how difficult it is sometimes for the poor heart; how it is tormented and suffers, literally being torn in half!"

— Abbot Damascene of Valaam Monastery, in a dream which Abbess Thaisia had of him after his death.

[thybeautytheotokos]

[thybeautytheotokos]

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