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Shaping Life Spiritually (Part III)

Along with continence of the tongue and belly, along with silence and fasting, humility is also described in many other sayings of the fathers as the royal road to God. For the monks humility is considered “the greatest virtue, for it lets a person rise up from the abyss, even when the sinner is like a demon.” The third practice consists in the interesting advice not to be sorry for something that is past. In

ON THE BODILY AND MENTAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF PRAYER

IT is important, while practicing prayer in this way, not to give the body free rein. A prayer in which the body is not distressed and the heart grieved is like an incompletely developed foetus, says St. Isaac the Syrian, for such a prayer has no soul. And it carries within it the seed of self-sufficiency and pride that makes the heart consider itself not only among the called but even among the chosen few