When vigilance is absent, absent also are our minds from our heads (they are stolen by the devil), and we remain with our bodies alone, without our minds, like logs. Later, when we collect our minds, they are heavy-laden with trash, which the cunning devil uses as kindling wood to light the log of our flesh on fire. Then he mocks us, leaping for joy from wickedness.
In order for our minds not to wander, we must accustom them to suckling on the sweet name of Jesus inside our hearts, so as to make spiritual progress. For, when the mind is absent, it is as if the master of the house is absent, and that’s when the house becomes a wreck.
If our minds are not present at the hour of spiritual study, we receive no benefit, but simply dally about and tire ourselves in vain, since we cannot remember anything. It is like a printer who has his mind elsewhere and does not put ink in the machines, for then the printing press runs in vain, without printing anything.
Likewise, those who are mindful in spiritual study, but only so as to entertain themselves, without employing it for their spiritual progress, resemble farmers who are too bored to grab the plow and instead snatch a spot in the dense shade. There they read agricultural books continually and learn of many theories, but in practice they remain inactive and miserable.
Women also enjoy and find rest in reading and are able to be benefited more than men since they are lacking in much logic and have more faith. Unfortunately, however, few are those who are benefited and make progress. Most, when they lay hold of themselves, are in turn seized by the "funeral dirge," and continually wail and complain, conducting microscopic spiritual tests on themselves, without first cutting off their weighty passions and later the minor ones, which, by the Grace of God, gradually vanish by themselves.
Although most women have great prerequisites for the spiritual life, they make little progress. They have less logic, a trait that is not harmful but rather beneficial in regards to faith, whereas men undermine their faith with their logic. While women possess love in their nature and can dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to God, men need work in order to make their hearts beat for God. When man’s heart does not work for God, he is in no way different from a stone statue.
Hence, we all have prerequisites for the spiritual life, both men and women. We have no excuse, for it is sufficient for us to want to utilize the abilities God has given us respectively, so that we might attain Paradise near Him — so that He may rejoice and that we, His children, may rejoice with Him.
Inasmuch as the Good God treats us with love and kindness and invites us to Paradise, so must we not treat our fellow men barbarously, setting our conscience at rest with the thought that we send souls to Paradise with our cruel ways.
Whoever behaves in a barbaric way, ostensibly to benefit souls spiritually, is worse than Diocletian, for Diocletian was an idolater and not a Christian.
Christ does not commend killing people with cruel behavior and sending souls to Paradise, but He wants us to help our fellow men so that we might all go to Paradise together. Those who endure martyrdom from Christians receive a greater reward than the Martyrs, if they suffer with joy and do not judge those who torture them, but are grateful to them for the recompense of their sins, or, if they were not blameworthy in their life, for the reward and crown they will receive from Christ.
In order for our minds not to wander, we must accustom them to suckling on the sweet name of Jesus inside our hearts, so as to make spiritual progress. For, when the mind is absent, it is as if the master of the house is absent, and that’s when the house becomes a wreck.
If our minds are not present at the hour of spiritual study, we receive no benefit, but simply dally about and tire ourselves in vain, since we cannot remember anything. It is like a printer who has his mind elsewhere and does not put ink in the machines, for then the printing press runs in vain, without printing anything.
Likewise, those who are mindful in spiritual study, but only so as to entertain themselves, without employing it for their spiritual progress, resemble farmers who are too bored to grab the plow and instead snatch a spot in the dense shade. There they read agricultural books continually and learn of many theories, but in practice they remain inactive and miserable.
Women also enjoy and find rest in reading and are able to be benefited more than men since they are lacking in much logic and have more faith. Unfortunately, however, few are those who are benefited and make progress. Most, when they lay hold of themselves, are in turn seized by the "funeral dirge," and continually wail and complain, conducting microscopic spiritual tests on themselves, without first cutting off their weighty passions and later the minor ones, which, by the Grace of God, gradually vanish by themselves.
Although most women have great prerequisites for the spiritual life, they make little progress. They have less logic, a trait that is not harmful but rather beneficial in regards to faith, whereas men undermine their faith with their logic. While women possess love in their nature and can dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to God, men need work in order to make their hearts beat for God. When man’s heart does not work for God, he is in no way different from a stone statue.
Hence, we all have prerequisites for the spiritual life, both men and women. We have no excuse, for it is sufficient for us to want to utilize the abilities God has given us respectively, so that we might attain Paradise near Him — so that He may rejoice and that we, His children, may rejoice with Him.
Inasmuch as the Good God treats us with love and kindness and invites us to Paradise, so must we not treat our fellow men barbarously, setting our conscience at rest with the thought that we send souls to Paradise with our cruel ways.
Whoever behaves in a barbaric way, ostensibly to benefit souls spiritually, is worse than Diocletian, for Diocletian was an idolater and not a Christian.
Christ does not commend killing people with cruel behavior and sending souls to Paradise, but He wants us to help our fellow men so that we might all go to Paradise together. Those who endure martyrdom from Christians receive a greater reward than the Martyrs, if they suffer with joy and do not judge those who torture them, but are grateful to them for the recompense of their sins, or, if they were not blameworthy in their life, for the reward and crown they will receive from Christ.
St. Paisios
