A Message for Overcoming Sin
THIS IS the opinion of the Fathers from days long past unto today: A man devoted to God should avoid women and bishops in every way. Once so familiar, neither will allow him to devote further attention to the quiet of his cell nor to adhere with pure eyes to contemplation of the divine through the pondering of sacred things. // Towit: Flee from the flesh and the world which binds you to the praise [...]
A Message for Overcoming Sin
SOMETIMES VANITY INDUCES the desire for spiritual influence, which one pictures fulfilled with such holiness and rigor that one would be an example of sanctity to others, winning over many to Christ not only by manner of life but by doctrine and preaching. Even amidst one’s solicitude, vanity makes one go round in mind and spirit, conversing with others under the incitement of vanity’s illusions. Filled with these vain images, one is unable to make [...]
A Message for Overcoming Sin
HOW PERNICIOUS, how grave the plague of vainglory! Such great justice, such manifold virtues, such depth of faith and devotion—which can change nature itself and the laws of the whole world—by one act of vanity perish. All one's virtuous acts are consigned to oblivion, being as if they never were, and one immediately incurs the wrath of the Lord—unless, by the very same steps of humility, one ascends again to the summit lost. St. John [...]
A Message for Overcoming Sin
OTHER VICES sometimes subside by beneficial surroundings; once opportunity, occasion, or matter of sin are removed, they slow down and diminish; but vanity penetrates the deserts along with the one who flees the external world. For it is animated by no other source than the flowering of virtue in the one it hunts. Whereas all other vices may diminish by mere lapse of time, for this one, length of years is no hindrance. Unless diligence [...]