1. Every place may become the place of the Resurrection. It is enough that you live
the humility of Christ.
2. As for sleep, keeping vigil is enough.
3. There are people who are vigilant about some things, and there are people who are
vigilant about all things.
4. Not a knowledge that you learn, but a knowledge that you suffer.
That is Orthodox spirituality.
5. Do not desire many things--more than you have, that which is far away.
Rather, seek to take care of what you have so as to sanctify it.
6. One thing is education: that we learn how to love God.
7. Nothing is cheaper than money.
8. Better hell here than in the other world.
9. It is not that which we say, but that which we live. It is not what we do, but what we are.
10. I put on the raso (the monastic habit), and I don’t say anything unless asked. The raso speaks.
11. If you have love for the whole world the whole world is beautiful.
12. Someone said that the Christian is one who purifies love and sanctifies activity.
13. We desire our freedom. Why? In order to be slaves to our passions.
14. Conference: When good-for-nothing people gather and decide that nothing can be done.
15. The aim is that even when we have the parasite in the head . . . we have the Paraclete in the heart.
16. We become a replication of heaven with “May Your will be done on earth as in heaven.”
17. One who loves does not notice, just as one does not notice that he breathes.
18. When the doors of Heaven are open, so the doors on earth are also open.
19. When the mind (nous) is not scattered in worldly things and is united to God, then the “Good day” that we say becomes a
blessing.
20. Every rejection and negativity destroys our work.
21. We must not exist before every image and likeness of the Other.
22. In the beginning of our life we have need of the presence of another to love or befriend. As we progress, the
One--God--fills us with such love and His joy that nobody at all is needed. All of this longing for another the soul does in the
beginning because it still doesn’t know Whom it loves and therefore thinks it needs a certain person.
23. God often does not desire the act but the intention. It is enough that He sees you are willing to do His command.
24. Jesus Christ gave the golden rule: alone and with the other.
25. When God created us, He gave us life and breathed His Spirit into us. That Spirit is Love. When we lack love, we
become corpses and are altogether dead.
26. The Christian must respect the mystery of the existence of everyone and everything.
27. To reach nonexistence, love, love, and love--and so identify completely with the Other, with every other. Then at the end
of the day you ask yourself, “Do I want anything? No. Do I need anything? No. Do I lack anything? No.” That’s it!
28. The spiritually advanced person is the one who arrives at a place of no identity and who has understood in his depths that
whatever happens is the will of God or by the permission of God.
29. Only when the person stops reading otherbooks except the Gospel does he begin to make real interior progress. Only
then, united with God through the Prayer, can he hear the will of God.
30. Never desire anything but the will of God, and receive with love the evil that comes to you.
31. Do not respond to a person with the evil he brings you, but see Christ in his heart.
32. Never say, “Why has this happened to me?” Or when you see someone with gangrene or cancer or blindness, don’t ask,
“Why did this happen to them?” But ask God to give you the vision of the other bank of the river. Then you will see with the
angels as it is in fact: Everything is according to the plan of God. Everything!
34. If we want to be good monastics, we must at every moment think of God before monasticism. Otherwise we will not
become good monastics.
36. Our most vulnerable spot is found in many words and discussions.
38. When you have thought of critcism . . . judging others, ask God to take hold of you at that hour so that you can love that
person as He loves. Then God will help you see your condition. If Christ were visible, could you criticize?
42 What we say remains to eternity.
43 Only when you are perfected in Love can you arrive at dispassion.
48. When needed, God will send someone to us. We are all fellow travelers.
49. The language of God is silence.
50. Whoever lives in the past is as if dead. Whoever lives in the future in his fantasy (or imagination) is naive, because the
future belongs only to God. The Joy of Christ is found only in the present, in the Eternal Present of God.
59. Better to say the Jesus Prayer aloud than not at all.
67. Anxiety and worry is for those who don't have faith.
68. Love is only on the Cross.
71. Do you want to pray? Prepare to answer the Lord secretly.
80. Only when we are "still"...not busy-bodies...busy-bodying...caught up in many activities... do we give the angels an
opportunity to do something.
93. How beautiful is the Mystery of Tommorrow!
95. The Lord said: "Whoever wants something, believing he will receive. It is enough that the request is in agreement with the
Commandments of God, that is with Love.
103. When we think always of God, God thinks always of us.
110. Woe to me if I do not love.
114. After the Liturgy, we should sit in the Church as long as we can, for the angels.
117. We are never anyplace "forever".
119. Every morning open a new page and put your signature on the blank. Whatever God wants, let Him write.
120. When we pray, let us lock our door.
125. If you do not reach the point of despair, you will never see the Light.
136. Be still and know...There is no greater school than this kind of stillness of the mind.
137. The only true joy is freedom from worry.
150. Christ said to us: Go and make disciples of all nations. And we - hushing up - what do we do?
179. The most powerful prayer is the Epiclesis of the Divine Liturgy.
183. Love is a bomb the destroys all evil.
192. The other day a lady asked me what would happen with the 'toll booths' after death. I said to her, " I will tell them the
Light of Christ shines to All! You however are in darkness and I don't see you!"
194. The greatest part of my prayer here and for years now is Thankgiving. What else should I ask, when I have everything?
199. God put the sense in the head. Why? Do you know? So that we can not see ourselves. Yes! So that we see only the
other and love only the other. And so that we see ourselves only in the eyes of the Other.
243. Some want to go to the Resurrection without passing by way of Gologatha.
244. Because the Christians could not put in practice the Gospel while living in the world, they fled. That's how they became
the first monastics.
259. Every person is 'sent'.
267. Our soul is a Divine Breath. Our body is His Creation. In the whole of us we are the icon of God.
290. Day and night let us bless God for the gifts He gives us.
291. Few words, much love. To all. No matter who they are.
And Mother said . . .
Only one thing do I know that I have always, and it is not pride, nor fantasy, but that which I have day and night, wherever I
find myself--three things: first, Faith; second, Faith; third, Faith. That’s all! Nothing else can I say to you. It has directed all my
life.
When we believe and someone says, “Do you want to come to Lebanon with me?” I say, “Yes.”
“How do you say Yes to everything?”
I say yes because I believe that if it is not for my good God will make it so that the No will come from the very one who
invited me. Some paper will not be ready, or something will happen.
Today I am ninety years old--may you live so long! I read again and again and again in the Gospels, and I see something
strange. Jesus Christ comes and says to the Apostles, “Leave now what you have and follow Me.”
Now, if they said, “And who are you? Why should we lose what we have? Why should we lose our profit? Where will you
take us? What will you do with us?”--if they had said that, what would have happened? They would have remained in
darkness.
They said Yes to some Unknown who came and said, “Throw all that away!” Why? Because they believed in God, and they
waited for the One who would say to them, “Come!” And that was the beginning.
Because if we say No, what will happen? . . . One or the other: If you believe, you will walk on the water like St. Peter. If you
are scared--Bloop! Nothing else.
Through all my life it has been like that. They called me to the strangest and most distant place in India. One night they sent me
a message: “Come and see someone who is sick.” We started out in an ox cart driven by some shepherd boy. And as we
were going up the mountain in the forest, what do I see above us? Two eyes shining, a tiger. What do you say then? “Lord
have mercy on me, and may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
So I closed my eyes and saw that written within me. Because He said to us, “Why do you worry? Why do you worry? Even
the hairs of your head are numbered!” Why worry? Faith is lacking. May we have faith.
Again, Mother said . . .
Once when I was there where I was, some foreign missionary came and said to me, “You may be a good woman, but you’re
not a good Christian.”
I said, “Why?”
“Because you have been here so long and you only go about speaking English. What local languages have you learned?”
I said to him, “I haven’t managed to learn any of the local languages, because I travel a great deal from place to place. As
soon as I learn one dialect, they start speaking another. I’ve only learned ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good evening.’ Nothing else.”
“Bah, you’re no Christian. How can you evangelize? All the Catholics and Protestants learn all the local dialects in order to . .
.”
Then I said, “Lord, give me an answer for him.” I asked it with all my heart, and then I said, “Ah. I forgot to tell you. I know
five languages.”
“Really? What are these five?”
“The first is the smile; the second is tears. The third is to touch. The fourth is prayer, and the fifth is love. With these five
languages I go all around the world.”
Then he stopped and said, “Just a minute. Say that again so I can write it down.”
With these five languages you can travel the whole earth, and all the world is yours. Love everyone as your own--without
concern for religion or race, without concern for anything.
Everywhere are people of God. You never know if the one you see today might tomorrow be a saint.
388. Come let us be silent.