If you want to inherit the future Kingdom, then find the King’s favor here in this world. And it is according to the measure of your honoring Him that He will elevate you; how much you serve Him here is how much He will honor you there, according to the Scripture: "…them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed" (1 Samuel 2:30).
Revere Him with all your soul so that He will deem you worthy of a Saint’s esteem. To the question: "How do you acquire His benevolence?" — I will answer: Bring Him gold and silver through the needy. If you have nothing to give, bring Him faith, love, temperance, patience, magnanimity, humility...
Restrain yourself from judging, protect your eyes so as not to observe vanity, constrain your hands from doing wrong deeds, avert your feet from the wrong path; comfort the faint hearted, be compassionate to the infirm, provide a cup of water to the thirsty, feed the hungry. In other words, everything that you have and were endowed with by God, bring it to Him because Christ did not scorn the widow’s two coins.
Saint Ephraim the Syrian
The following are spiritual passions: forgetting God, laziness and ignorance (of the Christian faith). These three passions obscure the spiritual eye — reason, and the person succumbs to the rule of other passions, namely: impiety, heresy, blasphemy, irritability, anger, sorrow, irascibility, hatred, maliciousness, slander, judging others, illogical sorrow, fear, dissension, jealousy, envy, vainglory, hypocrisy, lies, unbelief, foolishness, indiscrimination, short-sightedness, insatiability, love of acquiring things, laziness, passion for the earthly things, depression, faintheartedness, ingratitude, grumbling, presumptuousness, conceit, vehemence, haughtiness, love of power, flattery, slyness, shamelessness, indifference, effeminacy, dissimulation, mockery, two-facedness, assenting to sin, continuous thoughts of sin, meandering thoughts, self-love (mother of everything evil), love of money (root of all iniquities and passions), evil nature and deceit.
Saint Ephraim the Syrian
IF THOU, O man, dost not forgive everyone who has sinned against thee, then do not trouble thyself with fasting. If thou dost not forgive the debt of thy brother, with whom thou art angry for some reason, then thou dost fast in vain God will not accept thee. Fasting will not help thee, until thou wilt become accomplished in love and in the hope of faith. Whoever fasts and becomes angry, and harbors enmity in his heart, such a one hates God and salvation is far from him.
St. Ephraim the Syrian
If you cannot endure insults — be silent, and you will become calm. Do not imagine that you are suffering more than others are. Just as it is impossible for a person living on earth to avoid breathing, so is every person living in this world cannot avoid experiencing sorrow and sickness. Being engaged with earthly matters, we experience sorrow from the earthly, while those that strive toward the spiritual, suffer spiritually with their soul. However, the latter would be blessed because their spiritual fruits in the Lord are abundant. (Ephraim of Syria)
28. If sorrow has arrived, expect the arrival of happiness. Let us take the example of those sailing on the sea. When a storm arises, they battle with the waves, waiting for calm weather; and when calm weather arrives, they prepare for storms. They are constantly vigilant, so that the sudden arrival of wind does not find them unprepared by capsizing the vessel. We should also act likewise: when sorrow or a difficult situation arises, let us expect alleviation and assistance from God, so as not to be oppressed by the thought that we have no hope of salvation. (Ephraim of Syria)
28. Everything is from God — good and sad. One is from benevolence, while the other is because God allows it to happen. From benevolence — when we live virtuously, because it pleases God that we adorn ourselves with crowns of patience; by God’s permission — when we sin and are brought to our senses; from God’s will — when we do not improve even after being enlightened. God providentially punishes us sinners so that we would not be condemned with the world — as the Apostle states: "But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world" (1 Cor. 11:32). (Ephraim of Syria)
Not to sin is truly blessed; but those who sin should not despair, but grieve over the sins they have committed, so that, through grief they may again attain blessedness. It is good, then, to pray always and not to lose heart, as the Lord says, And again the Apostle says, ‘Pray without ceasing’, that is by night and by day and at every hour, and not only when coming into the church, and not bothering at other times. But whether you are working, lying down to sleep, travelling, eating, drinking, sitting at table, do not interrupt your prayer, for you do not know when he who demands your soul is coming. Don’t wait for Sunday or a feast day, or a different place, but, as the Prophet David says, ‘in every place of his dominion’.
Whether you are in church, or in your house, or in the country; whether you are guarding sheep, or constructing buildings, or present at drinking parties, do not stop praying. When you are able, bend your knees, when you cannot, make intercession in your mind, ‘at evening and at morning and at midday’. If prayer precedes your work and if, when you rise from your bed, your first movements are accompanied by prayer, sin can find no entrance to attack your soul.
Prayer is a guard of prudence, control of wrath, restraint of pride, cleansing of malice, destruction of envy, righting of impiety. Prayer is strength of bodies, prosperity of a household, good order of a city, might of a kingdom, trophy of war, assurance of peace. Prayer is a seal of virginity, fidelity in marriage, weapon of travellers, guardian of sleepers, courage of the wakeful, abundance for farmers, safety of those who sail. Prayer is an advocate for those being judged, remission for the bound, consolation for the grieving, gladness for the joyful, comfort for mourners, a feast on birthdays, a crown for the married, a shroud for the dying. Prayer is converse with God, equal honour with the Angels, progress in good things, averting of evils, righting of sinners. Prayer made the whale a house for Jonas, brought Ezechias back to life from the gates of death, turned the flame to wind of moisture for the Youths in Babylon. Through prayer Elias bound the heaven not to rain for three years and six months.
See, brethren, what strength prayer has. There is no possession more precious than prayer in the whole of human life. Never be parted from it; never abandon it. But, as our Lord said, let us pray that out toil may not be for nothing, ‘When you stand in prayer, forgive if you have anything against anyone, that your heavenly Father may forgive you your faults’.
Do you not see, brethren, that we toil for nothing when we pray, if we have enmity against someone? And again the Lord says, ‘If you offer your gift at the altar, and there you remember that someone has something against you, leave your gift before the altar, and go first and be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift’. Therefore, it is clear that if you do not do this first, all that you offer will be unacceptable, but if you do the Master’s bidding, then implore the Lord with boldness, saying, ‘Forgive me my debts, Master, as I have forgiven my brother, so fulfilling your commandment. I, weak though I am, have forgiven’. For the Lover of mankind will answer, ‘If you have forgiven, I too will forgive. If you have pardoned, I too will pardon your sins. For I have authority on earth to forgive sins. Forgive and you will be forgiven’.
See God’s unfathomable love for humankind. See God’s unbounded goodness. Hear instant salvation of your souls.
