Struggle correctly ( St. Paisios )

Those who truly love and struggle correctly, can also endure with love, sacrifice themselves, and give rest to their neighbor, who is Christ.

St. Paisios

If even one passion becomes a habit with a person, it will torment him. ( Abba Dorotheus )

If even one passion becomes a habit with a person, it will torment him. Sometimes, even one evil habit can surmount many good deeds performed by a person. For example, if even only one talon of an eagle’s foot gets entangled in a net, he would be captured. Similarly, a soul can fall into the hands of the enemy because of one passion. Consequently, don’t allow even one passion to turn into a habit, but constantly pray to God so as not to succumb to temptation. If through our weakness we find ourselves conquered, let us force ourselves to arise immediately, begin to lament before God’s goodness and begin again to be vigilant and dutiful. And God seeing our good intentions, humility and penitent heart, will offer His helping hand and will deal with us according to His mercy.



Abba Dorotheus

The Christian struggle ( Elder Paisios )

Greater worth has he who has acquired virtues through struggle than he who was born with inherent virtues and who therefore must double them so as to hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant..." (Matthew 25:21)


Elder Paisios

Do not despair when struggling and see no progress ( Elder Paisios )

We should not despair when we struggle but see no progress, remaining continuously at zero. All people earn zeros with their human strength, some more and some less. Christ, seeing our small human effort, places the number one before our zeros, and thus they acquire value and we can detect some improvement. Thus, we must not despair, but hope in God.



Elder Paisios

Maintain Calmness and Simplicity - Don’t Struggle Directly With Temptations ( Elder Porphyrios )

The Way of Love involves uniting ourselves with Christ. Our efforts should be continually focused on how we will be united with Him and keep Him continually in our heart. Our love for Christ is what must dominate both our mind and heart.

Elder Porphyrios says

What is holy and beautiful and what gladdens the heart and frees the soul from every evil is the effort to unite yourself to Christ, to love Christ, to crave for Christ and to live in Christ, just as Saint Paul said, ”It is no longer I who live, Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). He advises us to make our struggle with calmness and simplicity. We don’t gain by forcing ourselves to be good or forcing ourselves to pray. We need to do things naturally and calmly. We need to do them because of our love of Christ. With love there is no need for forcing. When we love Christ we enthusiastically long for time in prayer and to participate in the Divine Liturgy and the Sacrament of Holy Communion and Confession.

Likewise when we love God we should not struggle with temptations. When we do we only acknowledge the strength of the temptation and it gains control in you. When temptations arise focus on your love of God instead of attacking. When our mind is filled with Love of Christ there is no room to entertain temptations.

He says,

Let all your strength be turned to love for God, worship of God and adhesion to God. As we study the hymns and psalms, when we pray, devoting ourselves to love of Christ, we receive grace and are able to combat temptations with ease. The challenge is to keep our mind focused on our heart which contains our insatiable love of Christ.


Elder Porphyrios
 
Reference: Wounded By Love, p 137

My Struggle in Prayer ( Saint Theophan the Recluse )

Effective prayer can be a struggle. So often when I approach my prayer time I find my mind distracted so that I simply go though a routine without any feelings. Usually, I memorize many of the prayers I say daily in addition to my intercessory prayers. Memorization etches the prayer in my mind making it available to me at any time.


What happens frequently, though, is that my mind takes control and begins to pray automatically This is not a good sign. Why? Because our prayers need to come from the heart with feeling and an awareness that we are engaged in a dialogue with God. We need to have the awe of His presence as we pray. An automatic prayer is not really a prayer. A prayer must come from the heart with feeling and understanding. I find I must continually remind myself of this. Too often I fall into the trap of just putting in my time to fulfill my prayer rule. It is not about the time we spend in prayer, but the sincerity with which we pray that is of the most importance.


Saint Theophan says,

When you are at prayer, recite your prayer or psalm from memory, and embrace each word, not just with thought, but with feeling. If during this your own prayerful cries arise from some word of the psalm or prayer, do not cut them off, but let them come. We are taught to have a prayer rule and to stick with each day. We are told to memorize our routine prayers. But the danger is that our prayer time becomes too routine and we do not "embrace each word, not just with thought but with feeling." We can easily fly through our prayer rule, like we are on automatic pilot, and never allow for those precious moments of spontaneous prayer where our heart is fully open realizing God's mercy and help.


We do not need to have a complex set of prayers for effective prayer. We can have an effective prayer time with only one simple prayer such as the Jesus Prayer or the Lord's Prayer. But, we must be attentive to each word as we repeat the prayer over and over for our allotted prayer time. The words must drop into our heart and penetrate it deeply with feeling. With such attention, our hearts are opened and God's grace reaches out to embrace us with His mercy.


Saint Theophan says,

Labor, for nothing will come from you otherwise. If you are not successful in prayer, do not expect success in anything else. It is the root off everything.



Saint Theophan the Recluse
Reference: The Spiritual Life, pp 289-290

Struggle in Christ

                          

       Those who have advanced a lot in this struggle, have reached great access towards
Him because they made great sacrifices for His love and offered whatever they had
to obtain Him.

They became His close friends,His brethren, heirs of His Grace, even from now
here on earth.  They are God's Saints.....

     They don't simply beleive in God. They live in God and God lives in them.
That is why they keep on hoping even in the most difficult moments, where the
rest of us are at a loss..

     They remain steadfast, even when everything around them is disturbed.
They are filled with a mystic joy, even when everyhting tends to be surmounted
by sorrow.

      They are in peace, even when confusion overcomes everyone and everything.



The Struggle in Christ, the Apostasy of our Times

Struggle for Christ ( Elder Joseph the Hesychast )

                                                               

Without a struggle and shedding your blood, don’t expect freedom from the passions. Our earth produces thorns and thistles after the Fall. We have been ordered to clean it, but only with much pain, bloody hands, and many sighs are the thorns and thistles uprooted. So weep, shed streams of tears, and soften the earth of your heart. Once the ground is wet, you can easily uproot the thorns.



- Elder Joseph the Hesychast