Give something, however small, to the one in need. For it is not small to one who has nothing. Neither is it small to God, if we have given what we could.
We are not made for ourselves alone, we are made for the good of all our fellow creatures.
Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. He assumed the worse that He might give us the better; He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich.
Remember God more often than you breathe.
What He was, He laid aside; what He was not, He assumed. He takes upon Himself the poverty of my flesh so that I may receive the riches of His divinity.
These three things God requires of all the Baptized: right faith in the heart, truth on the tongue, temperance in the body.
It is difficult to practice obedience; but it is even more difficult to practice leadership.
Who gave you the ability to contemplate the beauty of the skies, the course of the sun, the round moon, the millions of stars, the harmony and rhythm that issue from the world as from a lyre, the return of the seasons, the alternation of the months, the demarcation of day and night, the fruits of the earth, the vastness of the air, the ceaseless motion of the waves, the sound of the wind?
I cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three; nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to the one.
The first of all beautiful things is the continual possession of God.
That which He has not assumed He has not healed.
Our starting-point must be the fact that God cannot be named... no mind has yet contained or language embraced God's substance in its fullness. No, we use facts connected with Him to outline qualities that correspond with Him, collecting a faint and feeble mental image from various quarters. Our noblest theologian is not one who has discovered the whole - our earthly shackles do not permit us the whole - but one whose mental image is by comparison fuller, who has gathered in his mind a richer picture, outline, or whatever we call it, of the truth.
To all earth's creatures God has given the broad earth, the springs, the rivers and the forests, giving the air to the birds, and the waters to those who live in water, giving abundantly to all the basic needs of life, not as a private possession, not restricted by law, not divided by boundaries, but as common to all, amply and in rich measure.
It is like employing a small tool on big constructions, if we use human wisdom in the hunt for knowledge of reality.
God always was, and always is, and always will be. Or rather, God always Is. For Was and Will be are fragments of our time, and of changeable nature, but He is Eternal Being. And this is the Name that He gives to Himself when giving the Oracle to Moses in the Mount. For in Himself He sums up and contains all Being, having neither beginning in the past nor end in the future; like some great Sea of Being, limitless and unbounded, transcending all conception of time and nature, only adumbrated [intimated] by the mind, and that very dimly and scantily.
If anyone does not believe that Holy Mary is the Mother of God, such a one is a stranger to the Godhead.
May God preserve me from being rich while they are indigent, from enjoying robust health if I do not try to cure their diseases, from eating good food, clothing myself well and resting in my home if I do not share with them a piece of my bread and give them, in the measure of my abilities, part of my clothes and if I do not welcome them into my home
We were made for good works (cf. Phil. 1:11) to the glory and praise of our Maker, and to imitate God as far as might be.
For God loves to be entreated, He loves to be compelled.
Different men have different names, which they owe to their parents or to themselves, that is, to their own pursuits and achievements. But our great pursuit, the great name we wanted, was to be Christians, to be called Christians.
May you be children of God, pure and unblameable, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (cf. Phil. 1:15): and may you never be entangled in the snares of the wicked that go round about, or bound with the chains of your sins. May the Word in you never be smothered with the cares of this life and so make you unfruitful: but may you walk in the King's Highway, turning aside neither to the right hand nor to the left, but led by the Spirit through the narrow gate.
Our teaching may contain nothing impious, nothing diluted.
Christ is born: glorify Him. Christ comes from heaven: go out to meet Him. Christ descends to earth: let us be raised on high.
It is more important that we should remember God than that we should breathe: indeed, if one may say so, we should do nothing else besides.
Let us treasure up in our soul some of those things which are permanent..., not of those which will forsake us and be destroyed, and which only tickle our senses for a little while.
