Drinking from the Hidden Fountain Quotes

“...the human race has received the dignity of God's image at the beginning of creation, whereas the perfection of God's likeness is reserved for the end.”
― Origen, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary. Ancient Wisdom for Today's World (Cistercian Studies Series)

“...we must never do anything that, in our opinion, may upset or offend, whether it be our acts, our words, our attitudes or our expressions. I repeat, even a look can be offensive. Every time we know we are behaving with the intentìon of hurting or making another feel bad, we defile our conscience because we are aware of this intention.”
― Dorotheus of Gaza, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary. Ancient Wisdom for Today's World (Cistercian Studies Series)

“Life has been called a 'way’ because everything that has been created is on the way to its end.

When people are on a sea voyage they can sleep while they are being transported without any effort of their own to their port of call. The ship brings him closer to their goal without their even knowing it. So we can be transported nearer to the end of our life, without our noticing it, as time flows by unceasingly. Time passes while you are asleep. While you are awake, time passes although you may not notice.

All of us have a race to run towards our appointed end. So we are all 'on the way'.

This is how you should think of the 'way'. You are a traveler in this life. Everything goes past you and is left behind you. You notice a flower on the way, or some grass, or a stream, or something worth looking at. You enjoy it for a moment, then pass on. Maybe you come on stones or rocks or crags or cliffs or fences, or perhaps you meet wild beasts or reptiles or thorn bushes or some other obstacles. You suffer briefly then escape. That is what life is like.

Pleasures do not last , but pain is not permanent either.

The way does not belong to you. Nor is the present under your control. But as step succeeds step, enjoy each moment as it comes and then continue on your 'way'.”
― Basil the Great, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary. Ancient Wisdom for Today's World (Cistercian Studies Series)

“I also ought to investigate my faculties. What are their movements, what is their function according to ghe divine plan? How does the intellect work? By what means does the soul lose its way and by what means does it return to the right road?”
― Niceta Stethatus, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary. Ancient Wisdom for Today's World (Cistercian Studies Series)

“...their spiritual reading of the Bible, a reading understood as a means to salvation, an initiation into the Light, an approach to communion with the Living One, teaches us to be on our guard against two dangers. On the one hand, to beware of the dryness of a certain biblical exegesis today which offers, or claims to offer, exactness at the expense of the living nature of the message. On the other, to beware of the subjectivism which merely comes down to a certain virtuosity in playing the strings off the human psyche, giving the believer the suggestion of 'doing the truth in love' without giving any love for the truth, still less the truth itself.”
― Thomas Spidlik, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary. Ancient Wisdom for Today's World (Cistercian Studies Series)