John Moschus. "Spiritual meadow". 130. The teachings of Athanasius and his wonderful vision
Abba
said: "Our fathers practised continence and poverty and detachment from
all things up to the time of their death. But we have stuffed our
stomachs and moneybags full."
He
also said: "Our fathers made it their business to avoid distractions to
the soul. But in our days we have them aplenty, as well as our manual
work"
Abba Athanasius also told us this about himself:
"I
was wondering once about what was worth striving for and what was not.
And I went into an ecstasy, and someone came to me and told me to follow
him. He led me into a place full of light and glory and set me in front
of a doorway, the like of which it is beyond my power to describe, for
we could hear inside a countless multitude praising God. We knocked on
the door and someone inside heard us and called out:
"'What do you want?'
"'We want to come in,' said my guide.
"'No
one who lives carelessly can enter here. But if you want to come in, go
back and strive to be able to count all the vanities of the earth as
nothing worth.'"
No comments:
Post a Comment