Take care of your body as if you were going to live forever; and take care of your soul as if you were going to die tomorrow.
Saint Augustine
The Body and Blood of Christ
25 August 2025
But it is not only the martyrs who share in his passion by their glorious courage! The same is true, by faith, of all who are born again in Baptism. That is why we are to celebrate the Lord’s paschal sacrifice with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The leaven of our former malice is thrown out, and a new creature is filled and inebriated with the Lord himself. For the effect of our sharing in the body and blood of Christ is to change us into what we received. As we have died with him, and have been buried and raised to life with him, so we bear him within us, both in body and in spirit, in everything we do.
St. Leo the Great
Cheerful Giving
25 August 2025
If you give something to one in need, let the cheerfulness of your face precede your gift, and comfort his sorrow with kind words. When you do this, by your gift the gladness of his mind surpasses even the needs of his body.
Saint Isaac of Syria
Spiritual Life
24 August 2025
Spiritual life does not mean being in the clouds while saying the Jesus Prayer or going through the various motions. It means discovering the laws of this spiritual life as they apply to one’s own position, one’s situation. This comes over the years by attentive reading of the Holy Fathers with a notebook, writing down those passages which seem most significant to us, studying them, finding how they apply to us, and, if need be, revising earlier views of them as we get a little deeper into them, finding what one Father says about something, what a second Father says about the same thing, and so on.
Seraphim Rose
The Mystery of Repentance
21 August 2025
The mystery of repentance is the greatest and most blessed mystery, which prepares us perfectly beforehand for Heaven…There is no sin on earth which is unforgivable for the person who will repent, and for the God of love Who receives him.
Elder Ephraim of Philotheou
On Music
18 August 2025
I am not satisfied with him who despises music, as all fanatics do; for music is an endowment and a gift of God, not a gift of men. It also drives away the devil and makes people cheerful; one forgets all anger, unchasteness, pride, and other vices. I place music next to theology and give it the highest praise.
Martin Luther
On Our Hearts
17 August 2025
If we want, Christian, to have our heart filled with divine love we must first empty them of the love of this world, its frivolous and sinful customs and then turn our hearts to the one God, our only good and happiness.
Saint Tikhon
Genuine Saints
16 August 2025
He who believes himself to be a saint is a fool. Genuine saints always look upon themselves as the worst sinners.
Saint John Bosco
Unashamed of the Cross
10 August 2025
Be not, then, ashamed of the cross, in order that Jesus Christ be not ashamed of you, when He will come, clothed in the Majesty of His glory, accompanied by this sign of our redemption, which will then shine more brilliant than the sun. Engrave it in your heart, lovingly embrace that which procured the salvation of our souls; for it is the cross which has saved and converted all the world — it is that which has banished heresy and unbelief, which has reestablished truth, which has made a heaven on earth, and which has transformed men into angels. It is by means of the cross that the devils have ceased to appear formidable, and are now only to be despised. . . it is through the cross, that all our enemies have been conquered.
Saint John Chrysostom
On Baptism
8 August 2025
Baptism is not one isolated moment in infancy, but it is the very reality in which we are now living and in which we will die. When Luther was afflicted by sin, he would not cry out, “I was baptized,” but “I am baptized.” Our services begin with “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” only because we are baptized. Baptism creates the church and baptism is the reality in which the church lives. Where there is no baptism there is no church and there are no Christians. Anyone who relies on faith for salvation is relying on something that is weak, something that often stumbles and is filled with doubts. Baptism, on the other hand, is absolutely certain, because it depends on God and not us. We see only water, but it is God who is in the water and who baptizes. Wherever God is, there He is forgiving us.
David. P. Scaer
Repentance is God Loving
6 August 2025
There are two ways of knowing how good and loving God is. One is by never losing Him, through the preservation of innocence, and the other is by finding Him after one has lost Him. Repentance is not self-regarding, but God-regarding. It is not self-loathing, but God-loving.
Blessed Fulton Sheen
Going to Church
4 August 2025
If you've come to church to find holy people, you've made a mistake. If you came to find God, you chose correctly.
St. John Chrysostom
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