faith & joy

"The faithful Christian isn't someone who can be hit by a boulder and not a hair on their head is harmed. The faithful Christian is weak and fragile, just like anyone else. So it would be unreasonable to seek out tribulations, or God forbid, martyrdom; let the faithful Christian lead a quiet, virtuous life. But if the tribulations do come, if there is a choice to be made between the faithful and the comfortable, let us all choose to be faithful."

Be watchful over your heart during your entire life, examine it, listen to it, and see what prevents its union with the most blessed God. Let this be for you the science of sciences, and with God's help you will easily see what estranges you from God and what draws you to Him, what unites you with Him. Your heart itself will tell you when it is united with Him, and when it is estranged from Him. The evil one, more than anything else, stands between our hearts and God; he separates us from God through various passions, desires of the flesh, and worldly pride.

“A man commiting numerous sins does not please the devil. Even a man committing great sins, and turning others against the Lord, doesn’t truly satisfy the devil, because he knows that God is a God of endless love and mercy. But when a man despairs and thinks God will not forgive him, when man chooses to hide his face from God, finally the devil rejoices.

When we pray for the living and the dead, commemorating them by name, we must pronounce these names with love, with the whole heart, as though we carried the people whom we commemorate in our souls, "just as a nursing mother cherishes her children" (1 Thess 2:7), remembering that they "are members of one another; for we are members of His body" (Eph 4:25; 5:30).

Peace cannot be formed on the bodies of children and slaughtered men, nor is it imported by shedding innocent blood.

We reject the misuse of the Holy Scriptures to justify wars and the exploitation of sacred texts for purposes that are not sacred.

Grace is given not to them who speak [their faith] but to those who live their faith.