Venerable Isaac of Syria is the mirror

Concerning the Homilies of Venerable Isaac of Syria
Elder Ieronymus of Aegina (+ 1966)

Forsake not Isaac. Every day one page of Abba Isaac. Not more. Isaac is the mirror. There you will behold yourself. The mirror is so that we may see if we have any shortcoming, any smudge on our face, in order to remove it, to cleanse ourselves. If there is a smudge on your face or on your eyes, in the mirror you will detect it and will remove it. In Abba Isaac you will behold your thoughts, what they are thinking. Your feet, where they are going. Your eyes, if they have light and see. There you will find many sure and unerring ways, in order to be helped. One page of Isaac a day. In the morning or at night, whenever. Suffice it that you read a page.

By stinting the stomach, the heart is humbled

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 14 ~ On Gluttony

¶22. By stinting the stomach, the heart is humbled; but by pleasing the stomach, the mind becomes proud.

Give your stomach satisfying and digestible food

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 14 ~ On Gluttony

¶12. [Evagrius] says: ‘When our soul desires different foods, then confine it to bread and water.’ To prescribe this is like saying to a child: ‘Go up the whole ladder in one stride.’ And so, rejecting his rule, let us say: When our soul desires different foods, it is demanding what is proper to its nature. Therefore, let us also use cunning against our unscrupulous foe. And unless a very severe conflict is on us, or amends for falls, let us for a while only deny ourselves fattening foods, then heating foods, and only then what makes our food pleasant. If possible, give your stomach satisfying and digestible food, so as to satisfy its insatiable hunger by sufficiency, and so that we may be delivered from excessive desire, as from a scourge, by quick assimilation. If we look into the matter, we shall find that most of the foods which inflate the stomach also excite the body.

Satiety in food is the father of fornication

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 14 ~ On Gluttony

¶5. Satiety in food is the father of fornication; but affliction of the stomach is an agent of purity.
¶6. He who fondles a lion often tames it, but he who coddles the body makes it still wilder.

Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 14 ~ On Gluttony

¶2. Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach; for when it is glutted, it complains of scarcity; and when it is loaded and bursting, it cries out that it is hungry.

Spiritual heroes come to light at the time of despondency

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 13 ~ On Despondency

¶12. Spiritual heroes come to light at the time of despondency, for nothing procures so many crowns for a monk as the battle with despondency.

A courageous soul resurrects his dying mind

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 13 ~ On Despondency

¶9. Each of the other passions is destroyed by some particular virtue. But despondency for the monk is a general death.
¶10. A courageous soul resurrects his dying mind, but despondency and sloth squander all his riches.