The Fathers Speak: St Basil The Great, St Grego... __HOT__

Many read this holy little book of St. Gregory of Sinai but, because they are ignorant of the art of noetic work, they misconstrue its true meaning by thinking that this labor is appropriate only for passionless and holy men. Consequently, keeping exclusively to the outward habit of chanting psalms, troparia and canons, they grow complacent with this merely outward prayer of theirs. They are unaware of the fact that such chanted prayer was given to us by the fathers only for a time, because of the weakness and infantile state of our minds, so that, rather than loitering therein till our dying day, by gradually training ourselves we might ascend to the level of noetic work. For what could be more childish than saying external prayers with our lips while being carried away by the joyful notion of imagining that we are doing something great, consoling ourselves merely with quantity and thereby nourishing the pharisee within?

The Fathers Speak: St Basil the Great, St Grego...

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