"At the edge of your heart the Lord is standing with a tall candle that burns without smoking or melting. The Lord is standing and waiting at your invitation, to bring the candle into your heart and enlighten it, to burn up all the fear in your heart, all its selfish passions and all its ugly desires, and to drive out of your heart all the smoke and foul stench. At the edge of your mind the Lord is standing with His wisdom and with His Word, ready, at your invitation, to enter into it and drive out all its foolish thoughts, all its filthy fancies, and all its mistaken notions, and to erase from your mind all nonexistent images — the Lord is standing and waiting to introduce His reason, His seals, and His words." St Nikolai Velimirovich in Prayers by the Lake LXXIX

The Heart is the Battlefield of Our Salvation

What is the heart?, "Thus, as

the bodily heart is the center

of the body's life, the spiritual

heart is the center of our

spiritual life",

Fr Spyridon Logothetis



Where is the heart? "The heart

is within our chest. When we

speak of the heart, we speak of

our spiritual heart which coinci-

des with the fleshly one; but

when man receives illumination

and sanctification, then his

whole being becomes a heart".

Fr Zacharias Zacharou



"(God) is the One who has

fashioned the heart of every man

in an unique and unrepeatable way"

Fr Zacharias Zacharou.



"It is astonishingly great that God

the Father, poured from His Spirit

a noetic sensation (noera aesthisis)

or breath to the bodily hearts of

those who rightly believed in the

incarnate Logos". St Kallistos



A heart that has been made alive

by the waters of holy baptism and

regeneration of the Holy Spirit has

the kingdom of God within, "the

kingdom of God is within you".

Luke 17:21



"Since the kingdom of God is within

us, the heart is the battlefield of

our salvation, and all ascetic effort

is aimed at cleansing it of all

filthiness, and preserving it pure

before the Lord". Fr Zacharias



The darkness and desolation of a

heart ravished by sin is indeed

apalling. In a heart that has not

been purified, "there are

dragons and there are lions;

there are poisonous beasts and

all the treasures of evil".

St Macarius



"For it is within you, that is, it

depends upon your own wills, and

it is in your own power, whether

or not you receive it. For every

man who has attained to

justification by means of faith in

Christ, and is adorned by all

virtue, is counted worthy of the

kingdom of heaven".

St Cyril of Alexandria



And with the kingdom we receive

all the treasures of Grace. "But

there is also God, also the angels,

the life and the kingdom, the light

and the apostles, the treasures of

Grace -there are all things".

St Macarius



