Words from the Saints -- July 10, 2025

"True, one may know man’s final goal: communion with God. And one may describe the path to it: faith, and walking in the commandments, with the aid of divine grace. One need only say in addition: here is the path-start walking!" --St. Theophan The Recluse

"Watch your heart during all your life—examine it, listen to it, and see what prevents its union with the most blessed Lord. Let this be for you the science of all sciences, and with God’s help you will easily observe what estranges you from God, and what draws you towards Him and unites you to Him. It is the evil spirit more than anything else that stands between our hearts and God; he estranges God from us by various passions, or by the desires of the flesh, by the desires of the eyes, and by worldly pride." --St. John of Kronstadt

"If you pray truly, you will receive assurances of many things, and angels will come to you as they came to Daniel, and will enlighten you with understanding of causes, the wherefore of all things." --St. Nilus of Sinai

"Brethren, let us endeavor to be a holy material for a holy house of the Kingdom of Christ which He builds day and night that He, by the end of time, finishes it completely." --St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"God, heal your creature, that he not be ruled by the enemy." --St. Poemen

"Just as water and fire cannot be combined, so self-justification and humility exclude one another." --St. Mark the Ascetic

"In the eyes of the sovereign Judge the merit of our actions depends on the motives which prompted them." --St. Gregory the Great

"With what hope will we meet Christ if we are still enslaved to the pleasures of the flesh?" --St. Thalassios the Libyan

"On our own, without Divine help, we are not even capable of praying. We cannot pray as needed, and we do not know how to pray or what to pray for." --St. Nikon of Optina