Daily Contemplation
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For who is your helper, but the Lord, to whom you say,
“O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.”
If you will presume on your own strength, thereby will you fall…
If on another’s, he would lord it over you, not succor you.…— St. Augustine -
Do not pray for the fulfillment of your wishes, for they may not accord with the will of God.
But pray as you have been taught, saying: “Your will be done in me” (cf. Lk 22:42).
Always entreat Him in this way – that His will be done.
For He desires what is good and profitable for you, whereas you do not always ask for this.…— Evagrios the Solitary -
Bread and water is life for the bodies of humanity;
but the body and the blood of the Lord is spiritual life for the bodies,
for His body is true food and His blood is true drink.— St. Shenoute the Archimandrite -
That Firstborn who was begotten according to His nature [from the Father],
was born in another birth that was external to His nature;
that we might know that after our natural birth we must have another birth which is outside our nature.
For He, since He was spiritual, until He came to the corporeal birth, could not be corporeal;…— St. Ephraim the Syrian -
If you do good to one person, you may then be wronged by another and feel injured,
and so say or do something foolish,
thus dissipating by your bad action what you gained by your good action.
This is just what the demons want; so always be attentive.— Evagrios the Solitary -
The text, “God so loved the world,” (Jn 3:16) shows such an intensity of love.
For great indeed and infinite is the distance between the two.
The immortal, the infinite Majesty, without beginning or end, loved those who were but dust and ashes,
who were loaded with ten thousand sins but remained ungrateful even as they constantly offended Him.…— St. John Chrysostom -
Pearls have their beauty by nature and so they are like Christ;
other stones must be graven and so are like created natures.— St. Ephraim the Syrian -
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (Jn 14:6)
[Because] we had no way whereby to go to the Truth, the Son of God,
who is ever in the Father the Truth and Life,…— St. Augustine -
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door,
but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.” (Jn 10:1-2)
Who is he that enters in by the Door? He that enters in by Christ.…— St. Augustine -
For faith ought to go before understanding,
that understanding may be the reward of faith.— St. Augustine -
The expression, “blows where it pleases,” is that of one who would show that it cannot be restrained,
that it is spread abroad everywhere and that no one can stop it from passing here and there.
It goes abroad with great might…
It establishes the power of the Comforter.…— St. John Chrysostom -
“You saved my soul from distress, and did not shut me up into the hands of the enemy;
You set my feet in a wide place” (Ps 30:8-9 LXX).
And have not shut me up, that I should have no opening for recovering unto liberty,
and be given over forever into the power of the devil,…— St. Augustine