The following of Christ
23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? 26 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
27 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
What is life and how we live it
Saint Basil the Great, Epistles, Epistle 293, in Church Fathers and Writers (2010), vol. 3, p. 462
`For those who change their thoughts easily it comes naturally that life is disordered but in what regards those whose plans are determined, steady and unchanged it is expected to live a life according to their principles. It is true that it is not in the power of the sailor to calm down the waves whenever he wants but it is very easy to live a quiet life without waves if we know how to put an end to the noises the irrational passions provoke in us and if we help our will to be stronger than what comes from the outside; as no losses, diseases or any other difficulties of life will touch the virtuous man as long as he will keep his mind up so that he may go in the steps of God and turn his look to the future and control easily and skillfully the storm which comes from earth. In what regards those who are strongly chained by the worries of life it may be said that resembling some birds who have useless wings they crawl on the land like some beasts
Metodius of Olympus, The Banquet or abour chastity, The 8th discourse: Thecla, I, in Church Fathers and Writers (1984), vol. 10, pp. 87-88
The wise men righteously said that our life is like a theatrical performance; we enter life for playing our role I the drama of Truth for pleading for holiness and our enemies are the devil and demons
Therefore it is due to keep our head up and fly to the skies and avoid the enchantment much more than the sailors avoided the mermaids Homer speaks about
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, The great catechetic word or about the religious education, cap. 35, in Church Fathers and Writers (1998), vol. 30, p. 334
Like those who got lost in the twists of a maze and who don`t know anymore how to get out of the numerous twists of the building if they don`t hold with their hands the back of one who knows the places and if they don`t go in the steps of that one until they see themselves out and if they don`t follow him, they won`t be able to get out, in the same way let us imagine this life as a maze through which the man may get lost and from where he can`t get out unless he follows closely the way used by the One who escaped us from this prison at getting out.
Source: http://ziarullumina.ro
