The soul is the best church of God, ( Saint Silouan the Athonite )

For prayer we have been given churches, in which services are conducted according to books, but you cannot take a church with you, and even books are not always available, whereas internal prayer is with you always and in all places. Holy rites are performed in churches in the presence of the Holy Spirit, but the soul is the best church of God, and whoever prays in the soul knows the world as his church. But this is not for everyone.

Saint Silouan the Athonite

We cannot serve two masters ( part 3 )

The second reason that “no one can serve two masters”is due to the fact that God’s law is diametrically opposed to the laws of the secular
world. What does God’s law command us first and foremost? To love every person like ourselves , to love even our enemies and to do good to those
who harm us. The laws of the worldly society, on the other hand, teach us that it is acceptable to hate them who wrong us, that it is logical to seek
revenge, and that there is nothing wrong with being ungrateful toward our benefactors. God commands us to show compassion to the poor and needy, to help them, and to be charitable to them. 

The world, on the other hand, advises us that we are not obligated to help others,and it recommends that we hoard and save our money, in order to use it for our own personal enjoyment alone. God commands us to speak the truth; the world, on the other hand, hates nothing more than the truth. This is why Christ states, “the Spirit of truth, which the world is not able to receive, because it neither sees it nor recognizes it” (Jn. 14:17). 
 Instead of speaking truthfully, the world likes to flatter, to gossip, to criticize, and to defame. God wants us to be humble, to trust and hope in Him, to live with purity, to dress modestly, to endure difficulties with patience and thanksgiving, to exercise temperance and abstinence, to fast, to pray. The world promotes the contrary: it incites us to be self-confident and trust in ourselves, to boast in our beauty and accomplishments, to dress fashionably, to delight in sexual immorality, to complain, to demand our rights, to blame others for our problems, to fulfill our physical desires, and to enjoy all the sensual pleasures of this present life.
This is why the law of God is the narrow path of virtue leading to the Kingdom of Heaven; whereas the law of the world is the wide road of sin leading to eternal Hell.Who can actually keep two laws that are so different and serve two masters who are so opposed to each other? Absolutely no one!
“No one can serve two masters.”
There is no middle ground. It is impossible for
someone to please both masters. It is either one or the other. Neither the wisest genius nor the greatest and holiest saint will ever find a way to please both masters simultaneously.
Since this is how things are my fellow Christians, what are we to do?
Which of the two masters should we serve? God or the world? If we are destined to live on this earth forever without ever dying, then fine: Let us
enslave ourselves to the world and enjoy everything it has to offer. If, however, we are mortal and will end up dying one day, if this
present world is transient:
“For the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31) states the Apostle Paul, if we are mere sojourners on this planet and our homeland is in Heaven:
“For here we have no continuing city, but we
seek the one to come” (Hb. 13:14, Ph. 3:20)
, if God alone is our master and Father, if during our baptism we pledged an allegiance to Christ and vowed to remain His faithful servants, and if we will give an account to Him for all our actions and sins when we die, then let us choose to serve God “with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength.”
Oh you treacherous and deceitful world! Let them who do not believe in the crucified Christ and who do not hope in any other Paradise serve you and
enjoy you. We who believe in Christ, however, will serve Him in this life, so that we may reign along with Him in His Heavenly Kingdom in the next life.
Amen.



Elias Miniatis, bishop of Kerniki and Kalavryta

http://www.stnektariosmonastery.org/

Prayer is the daughter of the fulfilment of the Gospel commandments, and is at the same time the mother of all the virtues, according to the general opinion of the Holy Fathers. ( Saint Ignaty Brianchaninov )

Prayer is the daughter of the fulfilment of the Gospel commandments, and is at the same time the mother of all the virtues, according to the general opinion of the Holy Fathers. Prayer produces virtues from the union of the human spirit with the Spirit of the Lord. The virtues which produce prayer differ from the virtues which prayer produces; the former are of the soul, the latter—of the spirit. Prayer is primarily the fulfilment of the first and chief commandment of those two, commandments in which are concentrated the Law, the Prophets and the Gospel.  It is impossible for a person to turn with all his thought, with all his strength and with all his being towards God, except by the action of prayer, when it rises from the dead and, by the power of grace, comes to life as if it received a soul.

Prayer is the mirror of the monk's progress.  By examining his prayer a monk discerns whether he has attained salvation or is still in distress on the troubled sea of the passions outside the sacred harbour. As a guide to such discernment he has the divinely inspired David who, talking prayerfully to God, said:
By this I know that Thou delightest in me,
that my enemy does not triumph over me.
And because of my innocence Thou hast helped me
and secured me in Thy presence for ever.

This means: I have learned, O Lord, that Thou hast shown me kindness and hast taken me to Thyself on account of my constant and victorious rejection, by the power of prayer, of all enemy thoughts, images and feelings. This kindness of God to man appears when a person feels kindness and mercy towards all his neighbours and forgives all offenders.

Prayer should be a monk's chief task. It should be the centre and heart of all his activities. By means of prayer a monk clings to the Lord in the closest manner and is united in one spirit with the Lord.  From his very entry into the monastery, it is essential to learn to pray properly, so that in prayer and by means of prayer he may work out his salvation. Regularity, progress and proficiency  in prayer are opposed by our corrupt nature and by the fallen angels who strive their utmost to keep us in their slavery, in the fallen state of aversion from God which is common to men and fallen angels.



Selections from The Arena

CHAPTER 17: ON PRAYER

Saint Ignaty (Brianchaninov)

In and Out ( Church Etiquette )

 Certainly parents should have ready access to the doors to take small children out if they are distracting or need a short break—for this reason the doors are to be accessible, i.e. let us avoid the temptation to congregate around the back candlestand and door, and challenge ourselves to move forward into the Nave.

Converstion with St. Paisios about his illness : cancer

–– Geronda, the final diagnosis has been made. Your tumor is cancerous and it's aggressive.
–– Bring me a handkerchief so that I may dance to the song: "I bid farewell to you, O poor world!" I have never danced in my life, but now I will dance for joy as my death approaches.
–– Geronda, the doctor said that first he wants to use radiation to shrink the tumor and then do surgery.
–– I understand! First the air force will bombard the enemy, and then the attack will begin! I'll go up then and bring you news! Some people, even the elderly, when told by the doctor, "You will die," or "You have a fifty percent chance of surviving" get very distressed. They want to live. And then what? I wonder! Now, if someone is young, well , this is justifiable, but if someone is old and is still desperately trying to hang on, well, this I just don't understand. Of course, it's quite different if someone wants to undergo therapy in order to manage pain. He's not interested in extending life; he only wants to make the pain somewhat more bearable so that he can take care of himself until he dies –– this does make sense.
–– Geronda, we are praying that God may give you an extension on your life.
–– Why? Doesn't the Psalmist say, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten?"
–– But the Psalmist adds the following, "And if by reason of strength they be foreshore years..."
–– Yes, but he adds the following, "Yet is their strength labor and sorrow," in which case it is better to have the peace of the other life.
–– Geronda, can someone, out of humility, feel spiritually unprepared for the other life and wish to live longer in order to get prepared?
–– This is a good thing, but how can he know that, even if he does live longer, he won't become spiritually worse?
–– Geronda, when can we say that a person is reconciled with death?
–– When Christ lives inside him, then death is a joy. But one must not rejoice in dying just because he has become tired of this life. When you rejoice in death, in the proper sense, death goes away to find someone who's scared! When you want to die, you don't. Whoever lives the easy life is afraid of death because he is pleased with worldly life and doesn't want to die. If people talk to him about death, he reacts with denial: "Get away from here!" However, whoever is suffering, whoever is in pain, sees death as a release and says, "What a pity, Charon has not yet come to take me... He must have been held up!"
Few are the people who welcome death. Most people have unfinished business and don't want to die. But the Good God provides for each person to die when he is fully matured. In any case, a spiritual person, whether young or old, should be happy to live and be happy to die, but should never pursue death, for this is suicide.
For a person who is dead to worldly matters and has been spiritually resurrected, there is never any agony, fear or anxiety, for he awaits death with joy because he will be with Christ and delight in His presence. But he also rejoices in being alive, again because he is united with Christ even now and experiences a portion of the joy of Paradise here on earth and wonders whether there is a higher joy in Paradise than the one he feels on earth. Such people struggle with philotimo and self-denial; and because they place death before themselves and remember it every single day, they prepare more spiritually, struggling daringly, and defeating vanity.

Reference: Elder Paisios of Mount Athos Spiritual Councils IV: Family Life, pp 274-276.