“First of all pray to be purified from your passions. Secondly, pray to be delivered from ignorance. Thirdly, pray to be freed from all temptation and abandonment.
[Abba Evagrius Ponticus, Chapters on Prayer]
Monthly Archives: June 2020
Free yourself from passions – Abba Evagrius the Solitary
“A man in chains cannot run. Nor can the mind that is enslaved to passion see the place of spiritual prayer. It is dragged along and tossed by these passion-filled thoughts and cannot stand firm and tranquil.”
[Abba Evagrius Ponticus, Chapters on Prayer]
A virtuous life isn’t impossible but isn’t easy – St. Anthony the Great
One should not say that it is impossible to reach a virtuous life; but one should say that it is not easy. Nor do those who have reached it find it easy to maintain. Those who are devout and whose intellect enjoys the love of God participate in the life of virtue; the ordinary intellect, however, is worldly and wavering, producing both good and evil thoughts, because it is changeful by nature and directed towards material things. But the intellect that enjoys the love of God punishes the evil which arises spontaneously because of man’s laziness.”
[St. Anthony the Great, Philokalia]
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