Reading of chapter 27 from _The Field: Cultivating Salvation_ by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

📖 _The Field: Cultivating Salvation_ by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

https://www.holytrinitypublications.com/the-field

🎧 Exhortation on the Prayer Rule - St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

https://youtu.be/YvCo0NiHMjU

🎧 On Attention and Distraction - St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

https://youtu.be/v5ZIEmv8RwQ

🎧 My Cross and the Cross of Christ - St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

https://youtu.be/RDmmWFqGGYA

⛪ FIND an Orthodox parish and monastery near you:

https://orthodox-world.org/

https://orthodoxyinamerica.org/

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St. Ignatius writes:

The essence of any striving toward the Lord is attentiveness. Without attentiveness, all our labors become fruitless, dead. He who desires to be saved must strive to maintain attentiveness to himself, not only in solitude but in the midst of distraction, into which circumstances sometimes hurl him against his will. May the fear of God outweigh all other feelings in the scales of his heart—then it will be easy to preserve attentiveness to oneself, both in the silence of the cell and in the midst of the surrounding noise of the world.

Temperance in eating, which lessens the fire in the blood, greatly aids watchfulness over oneself; while the warming of the blood that occurs either from overeating, from excessive physical movement, from the inflammation of anger, from intoxicating vanity, or from other reasons, gives birth to a multitude of thoughts and images, in other words scattered thoughts. The Holy Fathers recommend that he who desires to be watchful over himself must first control his appetite temperately, steadily, and constantly to abstain from excessive eating.

The amount of reading can depend on the strength of the person as well as external circumstances. In the same way as excessive eating disrupts and weakens the digestion, the intemperate consumption of spiritual food weakens the mind and makes it look on the ascetic life with disgust, leading it to despair.

The Holy Fathers recommend beginners to pray often, but not for long periods of time. When the mind becomes more spiritually mature and becomes stronger and firmer, then it will be capable of praying unceasingly.

If you have any free minutes during the course of the day, use them to read some chosen prayers with attentiveness, or read selected passages from the Scriptures, and through them once again strengthen your spirit, which has become tired through constant activity in the busy world.

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