Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
Dearly Beloved, each word and deed of Our Saviour Jesus Christ is for us a lesson in virtue and piety. For this end also did He assume our nature, so that every man and every woman, contemplating as in a picture the practice of all virtue and piety, might strive with all their hearts to imitate His example. For this He bore our body, so that as far as we could we might repeat within us the manner of His life. And so therefore, when you hear mention of some word or deed of His, take care not to receive it simply as something that incidentally happened, but raise your mind upwards towards the sublimity of what He is teaching, and strive to see what has been mystically handed down to us.
–Saint Basil the Great (330-379)
Grace, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic
The Spirit raises our hearts to Heaven, guides the steps of the weak, and brings to perfection those who are making progress. He enlightens those who have been cleansed from every stain of sin and makes them spiritual by communion with himself.
–Saint Basil the Great (330-379)
Grace, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic
Simple in himself, the Spirit is manifold in his mighty works. The whole of his being is present to each individual; the whole of his being is present everywhere. Though shared in by many, he remains unchanged; his self-giving is no loss to himself. Like the sunshine, which permeates all the atmosphere, spreading over land and sea, and yet is enjoyed by each person as though it were for him alone, so the Spirit pours forth his grace in full measure, sufficient for all, and yet is present as though exclusively to everyone who can receive him. To all creatures that share in him he gives a delight limited only by their own nature, not by his ability to give.
–Saint Basil the Great (330-379)
Grace, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic
Since we received a command to love God, we possess from the first moment of our existence an innate power and ability to love…What, I ask, is more wonderful than the beauty of God? What thought is more pleasing and wonderful than God’s majesty? What desire is as urgent and overpowering as the desire implanted by God in a soul that is completely purified of sin and cries out in its love: I am wounded by love? The radiance of divine beauty is altogether beyond the power of words to describe.
–Saint Basil the Great (330-379)
Discipleship, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic
That man, indeed, is in danger who does not throughout his whole life place before himself the will of God as his goal, so that in health he shows forth the labor of love by his zeal for the works of the Lord and in sickness displays endurance and cheerful patience. The first and greatest peril is that by not doing the will of God, he separates himself from the Lord and cuts himself off from fellowship with his own brothers; second, that he ventures, although though undeserving, to claim a share in the blessings prepared for those who are worthy.
–Saint Basil the Great (330-379)
