Amma Syncletica also said:

"If illness weighs us down, let us not be sorrowful as though, because of the illness and the prostration of our bodies, we could not sing, for all these things are for our good, for the purification of our desires. Truly fasting and sleeping on the ground are set before us because of our sensuality. If illness then weakens this sensuality, the reason for these practices is superfluous. For this is the great asceticism: to control oneself in illness and to sing hymns of thanksgiving to God."

Amma Syncletica said; "My children, we all want to be saved, but because of our habit of negligence, we swerve away from salvation."

Amma Theodora said: "Let us strive to enter by the narrow gate Just as trees, if they have not stood before the winter's storms cannot bear fruit, so it is with us; this present age is a storm and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven."

Now therefore, O kings (and queens) be wise;

Be warned, O rulers of the earth.

Serve the Lord with fear,

With trembling kiss his feet,

lest he be angry, and you perish in the way;

for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Psalm 2:10-11

All praise from every heart and tongue

To thee, ascended Lord, be sung;

Whom with the Father we adore,

And Holy Ghost, for evermore.

Amen.

Abba Agathon said, "If someone were very specially dear to me, but I realized that he was leading me to do something less good, I should put him from me."

A brother asked Abba Agathon about fornication. He answered, "Go, ast your weakness before God and you shall find rest."

(Barak Obama has recently come out in favour of same-sex marriages. Oh dear. Maybe he should have consulted the Desert Father's first!)

The brethren asked Abba Agathon, "Amongst all good works, which is the virtue which requires the greatest effort?" He answered: "Forgive me, but I think that there is no labour greater than that of prayer to God. For every time a man wants to pray, his enemies, the demons, want to prevent him for they know that it is only by turning him from prayer that they can hinder his journey. Whatever good work a man undertakes, if he perseveres in it, he will attain rest. But prayer is warfare to the last breath."

Abba Agathon said: "Unless he keeps the commandments of Gopd, a man cannot make progress, not even in a single virtue."