“Therefore everyone who
hears these words of Mine, and does them, I will liken to a prudent
man who built his house upon the rock. And the rain came down, and
the rivers rose, and the winds blew, and fell upon the house; and yet
it fell not, for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who
hears these words of Mine, and does not do them, shall be likened to
a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain cam down,
and the rivers rose, and the wind blew, and struck against the house;
and it fell. And the fall of it was great” (Mat. 7:24-27).”
“To master any art
requires time and much instruction. Can the art of arts alone be
mastered without learning? No one without experience would go in for
farming; nor would someone who has never been taught medicine try to
practice as a doctor. The first would be condemned for making good
farmland barren and weed-infested; the second, for making the sick
worse instead of better. The only art which the uninstructed dare to
practice, because they think it the simplest of all, is that of the
spiritual way. What is difficult, and the majority regard as easy;
and what Paul says he has not yet apprehended (cf. Phil. 3:12), they
claim to know through and through, although they do not know even
this: that they are totally ignorant.”
St. Neilos the Ascetic
“In the world you live
in … you must have seen how long it takes an artist to train for
his art, and how much effort he must devote to it. Is it not natural
that the art of arts should exact even more time and even greater
effort? … No art is acquired easily or without much diligent study
and practice. Could it be otherwise with the greatest art of all –
the art of arts – the spiritual life, the soul's salvation?”
St. Macarius of Optina
“Usually,
people prefer to remain silent concerning a matter which they know
nothing about and do not understand. This, of course, is completely
sensible. Let us imagine, for example, a person who knows nothing
about chemistry but who, nevertheless, constantly insists upon
interfering in the affairs of chemists. He corrects their scientific
formulae which have been obtained with great difficulty, changing
their order or replacing one with another. We would agree that such a
person is acting with the highest degree of
imprudence and that we can only have pity for him.
There
is one field, however, in which too many people consider themselves
to be complete masters, in fact, almost legislators; that is the area
concerning the Christian
faith and the
Church. In this field also, clear and definite formulae have been
established with a great effort of theological thought, spiritual
guidance, faith, and piety. These formulae are established and must
be accepted on faith. Regardless of this fact, a great many people
enter into the questions of faith and the Church solely as bold and
decisive reformers who want to remake everything according to their
own personal desires. In cases where such people have insufficient
knowledge or understanding, they are especially averse to remaining
silent. To the contrary they begin not only to speak, but to shout.
Such shouting on the questions of faith and the Church usually finds
the columns of newspapers and the ordinary conversations of people
who, in general, very seldom think of faith and the Church at all. If
they do think of such things, they prefer to voice themselves
exclusively in an authoritative and accusatory tone.
In
such an atmosphere a great multitude of various perverse opinions are
born which then become fashionable because
no one will trouble himself to consider and examine them. In the
prevalence of such opinions it can easily occur that they are
unconsciously assimilated even by people who are dedicated in their
souls to the faith and the Church.”
St.
Hilarion (Troitsky) the New Martyr
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