I once asked one of the most experienced fathers and pressed him to tell me how humility is obtained by obedience. He said: ‘The obedient man who has discernment, even if he raises the dead and receives the gift of tears and freedom from conflict, will still think that it is the prayer of his spiritual father that has done it, and he remains foreign and alien to vainglory. For how could he possibly be proud of what he has done, as he himself admits, that he did this by the help of his spiritual father, and not by his own effort?’

Based on Saint John of the Ladder

A monk is going towards Vatopaidi on a footpath.

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