truisms

[Ekaterina]

The sins of the entire world drown in the sea of God’s love, like a stone which sinks when thrown in to the water.

— Abbot Nikon

[Ekaterina]

Look at all the earth supplies in summer and in autumn! Every Christian, especially the priest, ought to imitate God's bountifulness. Let your table be open to everybody, like the table of the Lord. The avaricious is God's enemy.

St. John of Kronstadt (My Life in Christ:
Part 1; Holy Trinity Monastery pg. 46):

[Ekaterina]

A small and persistent discipline is a great force; for a soft drop falling
persistently hollows out hard rock.

St. Isaac of Syria

[Ekaterina]

Asceticism: Patiently and peacefully holding a screaming baby who will not be comforted.

[Ekaterina]

The truly humble man never ceases to reproach himself, even when the whole world attacks and insults him. He acts in this way, not simply in order to attain salvation as if it were passively by enduring with patience whatever befalls him, but in order to press forward actively and deliberately to embrace the sufferings of Christ. From these sufferings he learns the greatest of all the virtues, humility: the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, the gateway to the kingdom of heaven, that is to say to dispassion. He who passes through this gateway comes to God; but without humility hisroad is full of pain and his effort useless.

St. Peter of Damaskos

[Ekaterina]

The Stealth of Vanity
Once in a saintly passion,
I cried to God in grief.
"O Lord, my heart is full of guile,
Of sinners I am chief."
and then my guardian angel
touched me from behind
"Vanity, my little man,
you're nothing of the kind!"

[Ekaterina]

Tradition is the living faith of the dead;
traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.

Jaroslav Pelikan